A Knight In Cowboy Boots (29 page)
“Could it have happened that way?”
“You didn’t know them. Laurel would never have fought him; she was too scared of him. He hit her sometimes. And once he half drowned her when they went to the lake. That’s why they didn’t get married when she got pregnant. She wouldn’t leave him for her own sake, but Jesse—even before he was born …” Her voice broke and she bit her lip. After a deep breath, her voice stabilized. “She wasn’t going to let him hurt her baby.”
“She sounds like a mamma bear.”
“A what?” Her head came up and she looked at him for the first time since telling him her sister was murdered.
“She could’ve pulled a knife on him.” Angry fires lit Maddie’s eyes and Zach rushed to complete his thought. “If she thought Jesse was in danger. Mamma bears can be ferocious when they’re defending their young.”
“She had no reason to fight him.” Maddie’s voice left no room for argument. “Jesse was with me. His father couldn’t have taken him.”
“Okay. I can buy that. What about your boyfriend?”
“If he walked in at the wrong time, he would have reacted forcefully. He was protective of both of us. And he didn’t like Derek anyway. Thought he was unstable.”
“I could see how it might be hard to prove their deaths were intentional though.” Could she see that? Zach wondered. Or was she so caught up in her anger and pain that she couldn’t accept that others might need more evidence.
“Their murders,” Maddie corrected, her face a hard mask of anger and grief.
“So when the charges were dropped, you took Jesse and ran.”
“I already had everything planned except … I’d planned it for Laurel. I just—” Her face screwed up with pain as her voice broke. “—Never could get her to go.”
There was a knock on the door. Probably Jake, coming to report that he couldn’t find her. But Maddie’s car was outside, Zach realized. Maddie dropped her face as she grabbed the clothes that had been on top before Zach dumped it all on the bed.
When he opened the door, Zach was surprised to see his older brother. In the morning’s revelations, he hadn’t spared a solitary thought for anything but Maddie.
Typical of Sol when he was obsessed, Zach’s brother didn’t even offer a greeting. “You gonna make an offer on that bull or what?”
“When I get around to it,” Zach snarled. “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
Sol’s eyes focused behind Zach. “Yeah, I see what you’re busy with. That can wait.”
“As it happens, it can’t.”
“Excuse me.” Maddie bumped Zach out of the doorway. The duffel’s strap was over her shoulder, Jesse in her arms.
Sol’s eyes dropped to her. His body jerked and a look of shock passed over his face. “Maddie?” He shook his head as though trying to clear his vision. “It can’t be.”
Maddie looked up, equally startled. After a moment’s hesitation, she whispered, “McKay?”
Zach pulled Maddie back where he could see her expression. He looked from one to the other. “Y’all know each other?”
“I met her in Wyoming when I went to get Vince’s stuff,” Sol said. “She was Vince’s girl.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Zach felt like the air had been knocked out of him. It was too many surprises, too many things to wrap his mind around. As if his attachment to Maddie hadn’t made it all personal enough, Sol’s words multiplied his confusion.
Absurdly, standing there, holding Maddie’s arm to keep her from bolting, he felt like he’d been poaching on Vince’s territory. Guilt threatened to crush him.
“You were Vince’s girl?” he asked.
“McKay’s your brother? Her face reflected disbelief and shock. But you said you were from Jefferson. Vince was from Hero Creek.”
“I told you Jefferson because most Texans don’t even know where to find Hero Creek on a map. I figured you could find Jefferson if you looked.”
Sol stepped between them. “Let’s all back up a step and take it one thing at a time. What are you doing here, Maddie?”
“She’s running,” Zach said grimly.
“Is your name Maddie?” Sol asked Zach, echoing their mother’s exasperation when one of them answered a question not directed at them. Sol turned back to Maddie.
“Zach’s right. Derek wants his son”—Maddie’s arms tightened around Jesse—”but I can’t let that happen.”
“I thought he was going to prison.”
“They couldn’t prosecute. The police conveniently lost the knife.”
“They lost the knife? Christ!” Sol swore.
“People in power take care of their own.” Maddie’s tone was bitter again.
“Whoa. Wait a second,” Zach said. “Your name really is Maddie?”
She stopped and stared at him over the top of Jesse’s head. “Of course it is. What else would it be?”
“Susan M. Grey. That’s your name?”
The color drained out of Maddie’s face.
“Where’d you get that idea? Her name’s Wells,” Sol said.
“That ain’t the name she’s been using.”
“How did you know?” Maddie asked.
“That it ain’t your name?” Zach said. “I looked at your job application. The social security number belongs to a dead girl from Rhode Island named Susan M. Grey.”
“Claudia let you look at my application?”
“She didn’t let me. It was on her desk. When she was out of her office, I made a copy.”
“How dare you!” Maddie’s eyes narrowed.
“Hey, I ain’t the one using a fake name. Don’t yell at me coz you got caught.”
Maddie shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to need a new identity anyway.”
“What? So you can keep on running the rest of your life?”
“At least it gives me and Jesse a chance.” Maddie’s voice rose. “If Derek catches us, I won’t have any life left and Jesse will be raised by that monster!”
“Dammit all to hell!” Sol yelled. “Both of you back off and slow down. Maddie, stop holding that poor child like one of us is fixing to take him away from you. You’re gonna squeeze the stuffin’s outta him.” Sol pushed them both back inside, then picked up one of the table’s chairs, setting it down firmly enough that the legs made a solid noise even on the carpet. “Come here and sit down,” he told Maddie.
Maddie sat on the edge of the mattress instead, with Jesse in her arms. Sol pointed Zach into the other chair and sat on the one he still held onto.
“Now you’re both gonna take turns telling me what the hell is going on. And you’re gonna be polite and not interrupt each other.”
“Christ, you sound like Mamma,” Zach said.
“It works for her. Don’t see no reason to reinvent the wheel.”
Zach bit his tongue and listened as Maddie backtracked, telling Sol what had happened since she’d first met him in Wyoming after Vince’s death.
Jake arrived in the middle of the retelling. Zach gave him his chair as Sol bluntly gave Jake a three-sentence recap. Zach leaned against the dresser, where he could watch both Maddie and his brothers. Jake shot a wary glance his way when Sol told him about Maddie’s connection to Vince, but Zach carefully kept his face expressionless.
With Jake up-to-date, Maddie continued her tale. Stray pieces Zach hadn’t known came out in the telling, like how she’d picked up her new identity in Colorado and her aunt in Wyoming had warned her that Derek might be on her trail.
Though Maddie didn’t say, Zach was willing to bet big money her aunt’s name was Prudence.
“How did she know he’d traced you to Texas?” Sol asked.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s here.”
“Maybe it don’t,” Sol said. “But I’d like to know.”
“I don’t know how he figured it out. My aunt got a suspicious call from the Galveston area code. I don’t know how that’s connected to Derek, but he got a look at the caller ID and the next thing I know, he’s checking into the Gull.”
Zach felt his face heat up. He didn’t want to think his call from the Gull had exposed Maddie, but the lump of lead in his gut put the bitter taste of guilt in his mouth.
It don’t matter, he told himself. Not at this stage. Not compared to keeping Maddie safe and keeping her from disappearing out his life as suddenly as she’d come into it.
The thought of not knowing where she was—how she was—if Derek had caught up with them or not—made him feel like someone had grabbed hold of his heart and was trying to squeeze it like it was a tube of toothpaste.
Knowing she could walk out of his life with his child inside her and that he would never know—if he allowed himself to really consider that, he’d either be reduced to begging her to stay or to committing felony kidnapping.
When Sol expressed his belief that Maddie should stay, Zach felt like he’d just had a life sentence commuted.
Maddie, however, wasn’t so easily convinced. “Why do you want to get involved in this? It’s not your fight.”
“Vince didn’t live at our house,” Sol said, “but he was family just the same. There ain’t no one I was closer to, so if you think for one second I’m going to let you walk outta this door into danger without someone covering your backside—if you think any one of us will—you’re just plain wrong.”
“This isn’t about revenge, Sol. It’s about survival.”
“That’s what I’m talking about, too. Your survival. You and Jesse. If Derek wants to get at either one of you, he’s going to have to go through the whole damned McKnight clan.”
“It’s safer to run.”
“You wanna run your whole life? Dragging Jesse along behind you? What kinda life is that? Is that what your sister would’ve wanted for him?”
Even Zach thought it was a low blow, playing on the guilt any mother—even a pseudo-mother—had about not giving her child the best life possible.
He was glad Sol was saving him from having to do it.
“It’s not perfect,” Maddie said, turning defensive, “but it’s the only option I’ve got.”
“No, it ain’t.” Sol leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, giving Maddie intense eye-to-eye contact. “You can face him down. You can settle it. Now. Before you end up bitter coz you done wasted years of your life.”
“At least, I’ll be alive to grow bitter. And Jesse won’t ever have to live with the man who killed his mother. I can’t fight Derek. He’s too ruthless. I can’t beat him.”
“Ain’t you listening? You ain’t going to be doing this alone.”
“That’s because I won’t be doing it at all. It’s too risky. If I lose, I lose everything.” Her voice broke on the last word.
Sol measured her with his eyes. “You don’t trust us, do you?”
They waited through several long breaths for Maddie to answer.
“I trust your intentions are good. Beyond that, I don’t know you well enough to trust you.”
“You knew Vince. You think if he’d a’known what he was walking into that day, it would of come down the way it did?”
Maddie looked away. “No. He was a smart man. And I know he’d have found a way to protect us—all three of us. But you can’t be prepared
. Not day after day, maybe month after month. If I stay, he’ll find me. Will you still be prepared if it takes six months? Or a year?”<
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“We ain’t gonna wait six months. We know where to find him. You say he’s at Rachel’s hotel. Perfect place to issue an invite. But it ain’t gonna be engraved. If it’s done right, he won’t even recognize it for what it is.”
She was losing ground, and from the scowl on her face, she wasn’t happy about it. Zach held his breath, waiting for his brother to deliver a coup de grâce. Sol didn’t let him down.
“Jesse’s already lost his mamma,” he said softly. “The way you wanna play it, he ain’t never gonna have a secure home. Any time Derek gets close—any time you think he might be—you’re gonna have to tuck your tail ‘tween your legs and run. How many times will you have to uproot this little guy? Make him leave all his friends behind? Hell, you’ll have to get him a new name every time you move, just like you’re planning to do for yourself. I’m sure that ain’t what his mamma woulda wanted.”
Maddie looked at the child in her arms. One hand brushed his shiny red hair.
“You don’t play fair,” she accused softly.
“Yeah,” Sol agreed. “And that’s why we’ll win.”
Zach had to let her know Sol’s offer came from all of them. “We’re offering you the chance for Jesse to grow up like a normal kid. For God’s sake, take it, Maddie.”
He’d hoped she’d agree. He hadn’t expected her to burst into tears.
Ignoring his older brother’s raised eyebrow, Zach crossed to the bed in two steps and wrapped his arms around her. “It’s okay, sweet Maddie. We’ll take care of everything.”
Only when they started arranging to get everyone to the ranch did Maddie tell them about the car waiting at the rodeo grounds, and Zach learned how close he’d come to actually losing her. He knew he should be grateful he hadn’t; what he felt instead was anger. He bit down on it and tried not to let it show.
Knowing Jake would fill Sol in on how things were between him and Maddie, Zach wasted no time getting her and Jesse into the Lincoln and heading for the ranch. Angry as he was, he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight until she was firmly ensconced under his mother’s watchful eye. His brothers would caravan the rest of the vehicles home a couple hours behind them.
Zach didn’t think they could manage the drive in silence, but everything he could think to say was either bitter or downright hostile. Maddie stared in silence out the passenger window for nearly an hour. Zach wondered if she regretted letting them sway her.
Without looking away from the passing scenery, Maddie finally broke the silence. “Jake said your mother wouldn’t approve of me.”
It was about the last thing he expected. “When did he say that?”
Maddie’s hands lifted in a helpless gesture as evocative as a shrug.
“I don’t know why he would say that.”
“He said she wouldn’t approve of us.”
“She wouldn’t like knowing we’ve been … intimate,” Zach said. “I don’t have any plans to share that with her though.”
“I don’t know if I can get through this without you … distracting me.”
“Is that what I’ve been doing?” Zach couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Distracting you?”
“Yes … No …” She was silent for several moments while Zach stewed in his anger. “I thought I was building a new life for Jesse and me. You made me feel almost normal again.”
“And yet you were going to run. You were going to leave everything behind.”
“Yes.” Her voice was flat and emotionless.
“You think maybe you still oughta.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” She turned toward him. “I’m scared, Zach. More scared than I’ve ever been. When he killed Laurel and Vince, I wasn’t scared. It was over before I knew I needed to be. This time I know it’s coming.”
Zach felt like a selfish jerk for being mad at her, but he wasn’t ready to let his anger go. “Why me? Why’d you go with me that first night?”
Maddie looked out the window again. “The way you talk. You sound like Vince.”
Her words knifed through him. She couldn’t have said anything more hurtful if she’d tried. Here he was, falling in love with her, and she was pretending he was someone else. It didn’t help that Vince had been a good guy.
“That’s what brought you to Galveston. To Rachel’s hotel, ain’t it?”
“Yes. I wasn’t ready to let go of him yet. I needed to be someplace where he’d been. Someplace he knew. He told me once that he stayed at the Gull whenever he was … ” She drew a sharp breath. “It was because of Rachel. Because she works there.” The eyes she turned toward him were wide with the realization. “That’s why he stayed there, wasn’t it? She’d comp him a room, just like she does for you.”
Zach felt his mouth stretch into a hard thin line.
“I guess you’re gonna be in hog heaven in Jefferson coz everyone at home talks the way Vince did.”
“I knew you wouldn’t understand. I went with you that first night because I was drinking and you reminded me of Vince.” Sorrow tinged her voice, but its edge was muted. It didn’t come close to the misery that had curled itself up in Zach’s soul. “That’s not why I let you get close to me. It’s not why I ended up in bed with you. You did that all on your own, even though by then I was trying to keep you at arm’s length.”
“Yeah, you let me take you to bed because I’m so damned irresistible.”
Anger flashed in her eyes and her tone sharpened. “If you weren’t driving right now, I’d slap the hell out of you!”
He was tempted to pull over and let her try.
“If you’re gonna tell me I swept you off your feet, you’d best not. Not when you called me Vince the first time we had sex.”
Maddie drew a sharp breath.
“Forgot about that, did you?”
She was silent for nearly a minute. “I did, didn’t I?”
“Yes, ma’am, you surely did.”
Maddie let the silence descend again. Zach thought the conversation was over but after a couple of minutes, she said, “For a while you and Vince were all tangled up in my mind. It’s not that way anymore, Zach. I wish there was a way to prove that to you.” She sighed. “Maybe it’s just as well there’s not.”
Zach felt his heart shrivel in his chest. If she wasn’t willing to fight it through, he might as well have let her run because he’d already lost her.
*
The ranch house sat a quarter of a mile off the county road. As they pulled into the ranch yard, Zach saw everything with fresh eyes, the way it must appear to Maddie. The big old white clapboard house that was due to be painted sitting opposite the two-story barn with the corrals beside it. Between the corrals and the barn, the ranch trucks were parked in a row in the open shed, the tractor parked next to the bay that housed the welder and Gideon’s farrier and blacksmithing equipment. He could just see the corner of the vegetable garden behind the house. Everything but mamma’s patch of flowers, thick with bearded irises, was built for function rather than aesthetics.
As Zach stopped the car around the back of the house, the youngest McKnights, two boys and two girls, ranging from eleven to thirteen, ran across the ranch yard in some chasing game, the dogs at their heels. He wished Sol and Jake were closer behind them so his mamma would have something to distract her from him bringing a girl home. For a bleak moment, he agreed with Maddie that it was just as well they couldn’t recapture what they’d had before; he’d never be able to touch her here the way he wanted to.
His mother opened the back screen door to see who’d arrived in the unfamiliar car. Zach released a deep breath, steeling himself to face her. “I don’t know if you’re ready for this, but you’re about to meet the rest of my family.”
“Are they like Rachel?”
“No, but they can be a bit overwhelming.”
Zach’s mother came out to greet them. He hugged her then introduced Maddie and Jesse.
Zach’s mother took her hand. “It’s good to meet you, Maddie. Madeline?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s a good strong name.” His mother liked strong names; Maddie would forever be Madeline to her. “Call me Ruth. Come on into the kitchen. I was just making pies for supper.”
“Where’s Daddy?” Zach asked.
“He’s out in the barn, fussing with a colicky calf. Did you see Sol and the others at the rodeo?”
“Yeah, they’ll be along in a couple of hours. I’m gonna go see Daddy.” Zach felt guilty, abandoning Maddie, but he couldn’t face his mother, knowing she would be sizing them up as a couple. He didn’t think he could maintain that illusion, and his mother would box his ears if she heard any disrespect toward Maddie in his tone. When Sol got there, Zach would let him break the news that Maddie was Vince’s girl and that she needed their protection.
*
Not knowing how much the boys had told their parents, Maddie was cautious with Zach’s mother. She was pretty sure Ruth was speculating madly about what relationship might exist between Maddie and her son, but she didn’t force any prying questions on Maddie. Instead, while Maddie fed Jesse, Ruth talked about the weather—not a trivial subject, Maddie knew, for any rural family.
At intervals, one or two of the children returned to the house to run through the kitchen, snagging a bit of food: a box of raisins or, with an approving nod from their mother, a cookie from the jar on the counter.
After one foray, Maddie was surprised to find one of the girls had chosen to remain in the house. Just like her siblings, she’d been in jeans and T-shirt just minutes before, but she had changed into a blue dress with a white pinafore Maddie guessed Ruth had made for her.
Though she looked nothing like Laurel, something about her reminded Maddie of her sister when she’d been that age. She came and sat on the table near Maddie and started tying ribbons into the hair of the doll she’d brought with her, sneaking not too subtle glances at Maddie. Finally, the girl asked, “What’s your names?”
“My name’s Maddie and this is Jesse. What’s yours?”
“Hannah,” she said, meeting Maddie’s gaze.
“And how old are you, Hannah?”
“I’m ten.” The demands of politeness, at least in the form of eye contact, seemed to have been met in the girl’s mind. Her gaze dropped to Jesse and stayed there. “Where do you live?”
“Hannah, stop being so nosy,” Ruth said as she started weaving a lattice crust over a cherry pie.
“It’s okay,” Maddie said. “I don’t mind.” She turned back to the girl. “I’ve been living in Galveston.”
“I have a sister in Galveston.”
“I know. I work at the same hotel.”
“What do you do there?”
Maddie cast a glance at Ruth. She wondered if a woman who gave her children old testament names would approve of alcohol. “I bartend.” She couldn’t tell if Ruth approved or not.
“What do you do with your baby when you’re bartending?”
“I have a college girl who sits for me.”
“Do you like bartending?” Hannah asked. “More than you like taking care of your baby?”
“Hannah!”
“It’s okay,” Maddie assured Ruth. “I’d prefer to be home with Jesse, but it’s just me and him, so I have to work, so I can feed him and buy him clothes.”
“I’d never leave my baby if I had one.”
“Hannah!” Ruth’s tone was harsher.
“Well, I wouldn’t,” Hannah said to her mother. She turned to Maddie, explaining, “I want to be a mamma and have a dozen babies.”
Undoubtedly, that explained her difficulty letting go of the doll, a toy years too young for her. Laurel would have said exactly the same thing at Hannah’s age.
