Her Bodyguard (8 page)

Hearing the tremble in her mother’s voice, Mari reached out and grasped her hand.

Around the Texas Spring Palace, chaos continued to reign. Those fighting the raging flames had abandoned the building and instead, worked to prevent the fire from spreading to nearby structures. Further rescue attempts of any person trapped inside apparently had been abandoned. “Did the boys say where they last saw Billy?” Mari asked.

“Tommy said he followed you out of the ballroom when you left with Luke Garrett.”

“Billy followed me?” Mali’s mind raced back over the scene her young, impressionable brother might have witnessed. Oh, Kat. If Billy saw what I saw…

“I imagine he was worried about you. He’s protective of his big sisters, and you were with a known outlaw. I haven’t a clue where Kat ran off to. What part of the building were you in?”

The southeast wing. Where the fire started. Oh, God. “I was in the theater, but that was long before the fire started. I never saw Billy. I’ll bet something else distracted him and he went off somewhere else entirely.”

Or else, he stayed to watch Kat after Mari fled the building. Maybe he’s with Kat even now. “Maybe he went home. Maybe he and Kat are waiting at for us at Willow Hill.”

“I pray that’s so. Emma promised to send Tom to tell me the minute anyone comes home.”

Tension churned in Mari’s stomach. She wanted to snarl at the bystanders nearby who oohed and aahed with excitement. One barrel-bellied cowboy actually said it’d be something to see a burning body dash from the inferno. “What’s wrong with people?” she murmured.

Her mother squeezed her hand in silent agreement.

Then a voice resonant with joy called out from the crowd. “Maribeth!”

Seconds later, she was wrapped in Trace McBride’s strong embrace. “My baby, baby, baby,” he murmured into her hair. The tremor in his voice made her want to weep.

Abruptly, he stepped back, surveying her from head to toe. “You’re all right. You weren’t hurt.”

“I’m fine, Papa.” He, however, looked as if he’d aged a dozen years in the past two hours. The lines feathering from around his eyes had deepened, and his salt-and-pepper hair appeared heavier on salt. He looked weary and worried and wounded.

Almost as if he knew something. Something bad.

Oh, God.

Jenny touched her husband’s sleeve. “Trace? Kat and Billy?”

Distress flashed across his face. “No sign. No one has seen them. It’s a madhouse, though, and locating anyone is just a matter of chance. I had hoped to find everyone here.” To Mari, he said, “You remembered my rule about getting lost in a crowd.”

“I did.”

“The younger boys remembered,” he continued. “Billy should. Kat, too. I could see Billy getting caught up in the excitement of the fire and not thinking how worried we’d be, but Katrina should know better. She should know better, and she should remember and she should be here right now.”

Mari didn’t know what to say to her father. Should she tell him about seeing Kat with Rory? How could she not? “Papa, I—”

“Papa! Mama!” came a welcome, though teary, voice. “I hoped you’d be here.”

Billy. Joy and relief filled Mari’s heart as her mother and father rushed forward and she turned to see…a most unexpected sight.

Luke Garrett carried her brother in his arms. Though scuffed and dirty with red-rimmed eyes, Billy appeared to be in good health. Luke had a bloody gash on his cheek and a bruise on his temple. His smile was grim, the light in his eyes flat. He handed Billy over to her mother, then stepped back while her parents made a fuss over their son.

Watching him, Mari’s blood ran cold. She knew. No. Please, God. No.

Kat.

Mari’s knees went weak and her head started to spin. She leaned back against the flagpole base for support.

Having greeted his son, Trace turned to Luke Garrett. “Where did you find him?”

“He found me.” Then Luke stunned them all by adding, “Mr. McBride, your son saved my life. I am in his debt.”

Now standing at his mother’s side, Billy buried his head in her skirts and started to sob. The sound brought a lump to Mari’s throat and triggered tears of her own.

Roughly, Trace demanded, “What happened?”

Luke looked briefly at Mari and she knew from the brief exchange that they’d hear a censored version of events. “I’d met with an accident and as the fire spread, I lay unconscious in an out-of-the-way place. After his attempts to rouse me proved unsuccessful, Billy ran for help.”

Trace placed two fingers under his son’s chin and tilted his face upward. In a voice brimming with emotion, he said, “I’m proud of you, son.”

Billy jerked away and closed his eyes. “No, Pa. I’m bad. I’m a sorry, awful person!”

Trace and Jenny shared a baffled glance. Mari’s stomach took a nauseous roll. Kat.

Jenny knelt before her son. “What’s wrong, Billy? Tell us.”

“Mrs. McBride,” Luke began. “I don’t think—”

Billy interrupted with a tormented torrent of words. “The man hit him with a whiskey bottle and Kat screamed and she thought he was dead and she bumped the table and the candle fell but she didn’t see. I know she didn’t see. The man made her go behind the curtain and I ran up to the stage but by the time I got there it was on fire. It was on fire, Mama, and I was afraid to go get her, to tell her it was burning. I was afraid.” His voice broke on a sob. “It was smoking and crackling and burning and I was so scared. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s my fault. It’s my fault!”

Jenny cried out softly like an animal in pain. Trace’s face bleached white. “Ka—” His voice cracked. He cleared his throat, then tried again. “Katrina?”

Luke said, “I don’t know, Mr. McBride. I didn’t see them leave. It’s possible they found an exit.”

“They?” Jenny repeated. “Who’s they?”

“That actor,” Mari said, in doing so admitting her involvement. “Kat met that actor in the theater. I followed her and she and I had…words.”

After a moment’s silence, Jenny murmured, “The cookies.”

Her heart breaking, Mari took a step toward her father. He appeared as if he’d taken a mortal blow. “The fire began in that wing. Kat.” He reached for Mari’s hand. Squeezed it hard. “Kat started the fire. Kat started the fire and no one’s seen her since.”

“I saw it too, Mr. McBride,” Luke said. “It definitely was an accident.”

Mari felt her father shudder, then he turned a stricken look toward his wife. “I had a feeling, Treasure. I’ve had this goddamn feeling for months!”

In the face of her husband’s despair, Jenny seemed to draw upon some inner strength. Her spine straightened, her shoulders squared. She rose to her feet and looked her husband straight in the eyes. “Leave it be, McBride. It’s too early to assume the worst.”

“If she’s not hurt, then where is she?”

Billy began sobbing anew, and Mari moved to take him into her arms to offer both of them comfort. “Maybe she knows about knocking over the candle and she’s afraid to come home, afraid to face us.”

“No!” Billy cried. “She didn’t know, I tell you. It was an accident and it rolled under the chair and she didn’t even know! She didn’t come out. I asked that man if there was another door and he said no. She didn’t come out!”

“What man?” Trace snapped.

Luke responded. “The fella Billy found to haul me out of the theater. A guy named Wagner. He knows the building and said that stage door was the only back door out of the theater. That doesn’t mean they didn’t leave another way.”

“But I didn’t see them. I’d have seen them. Kat didn’t come.”

“Stop it.” Jenny pinned them each in turn with a fierce, determined look, then took charge. “I’ll have no more negative talk. Now, I think we can conclude that had Kat remembered her father’s edict regarding crowds and tall landmarks, she’d have been here by now. Therefore, Mari, I want you to take your brother home. I’m sure your father wishes to remain at the site and assist in the…um…efforts. I’ll stay with him.”

Trace shook his head. “Jenny, you should go home, too.”

“I’m staying,” she stated flatly. “Mari, if your sister arrives at Willow Hill, one of you come down and let’s do like we did for Mr. Waddell. Run something of Kat’s up this flagpole. Her yellow shawl, I think. That’s bright. We’ll spot it.”

She turned to Luke and offered him her hand. “Thank you for bringing my son to us, Mr. Garrett. I’m glad he was able to be of assistance to you. Perhaps when this is all over, you could come to tea and share more of the details with us.”

“Certainly, Mrs. McBride. Whatever you like.”

Luke Garrett, however, wasn’t ready to be dismissed. He glanced at Mari once more, then said, “Considering this evening’s events, you should know that I intend to participate in a search for your daughter and Rory.”

“Thank you, Garrett.” Trace cleared his throat gruffly. “All hands are appreciated at a time like this.”

Mari sensed more to his offer than gratitude for Billy’s assistance, and under the circumstances, she thought she should call him on it. “Who is he to you, Luke?”

He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked away for just a moment. Then, staring her straight in the eye, he said, “His real name is Callahan. Rory Callahan is my half brother.”

Unsurprised, Mari nodded once. “Find them.”

“I will.”

At Willow Hill, Mari, Emma, and their three younger brothers gathered on the front porch in the gathering darkness, their mood quiet and subdued. Billy sat off by himself, his back turned toward the driveway. Mari tried to keep the other boys entertained with a game of cards, but in a rare occurrence, no one cared about competition.

A little after ten, the youngest McBride, seven-year- old Bobby, fell off to sleep and Emma carried him upstairs to bed. Nine-year-old Tommy made it until just after midnight. Billy was still awake at half past three when the McBride family carriage rattled slowly up the hill.

Light from a three-quarter moon cast a ghostly silver light across the scene, and though her parents’ faces remained in shadow, the very stillness of their bodies foretold the news they bore.

Simultaneously, Emma and Mari reached for each other’s hand. Without uttering a sound, Billy McBride leaped up and ran inside, the front screen door shutting with a bang behind him.

Their expressions ravaged, their cheeks tear-streaked, Trace and Jenny McBride lifted leaden feet to climb the steps of their home and face their two eldest children.

Beside Mari, Emma swayed. “Mama?”

Jenny looked at them, and tears spilled from reddened eyes. She slowly shook her head.

“No-o-o-o.” Emma melted into her mother’s arms and the two women collapsed into quiet weeping.

Mari stared up at her father, the strongest man she’d ever known. Her hero. Her champion. Her daddy. “Your Katie-cat?”

Broken, Trace McBride pulled her into his arms and wept against her hair. “I’m afraid she’s gone, Mari. God help us, but I’m afraid that damned explosion took our Katie-cat away.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Three months later

BACK IN THE DAY, Luke’s grandfather referred to Texas’s August heat as sick-dog weather, meaning the way a sick dog’s nose was hot and dry instead of cold and wet like usual. Luke recalled afternoons when his father would stroll onto the front porch of the ranch house, sipping on a steaming cup of coffee. He’d stare out over his land, where the only movement to be seen was the ripple of heat rising from brittle brown grass, and drawl, “It’s hot enough to loosen the bristles on a wild hog.” Then he’d sip his coffee, throw his wife a wink, and walk out into the blazing heat to tend a horse or fix a fence.

Buck Garrett had thrived on summertime in Texas. He’d died one bleak and bitter February morn when a blizzard blew in off the West Texas plains and collapsed the roof of the line shack where he slept. From that day forward, Luke detested cold weather.

Of course, that didn’t mean he liked sweltering in his bed trying to get some shut-eye following a surveillance operation that had lasted all night.

He rolled onto his back and scowled up at the ceiling fan that did little more than stir hot stagnant air. He was a Texan born and bred and proud of it, but on a day like this, livin’ in Alaska sounded like a damned fine idea. Grandpa would have me hanged as a traitor for such a thought.

Luke’s mouth twisted in a rueful grin. Someday, somebody would invent a machine that blew winter-cold air into a summer-hot room. When that arrived, living in Texas would be like living in paradise. But in the meantime, he didn’t figure there could be a more appropriate name for the place where he currently lived than Hell’s Half Acre.

Giving up on getting any sleep, he rolled from the bed and stepped naked across the room toward the second-story window, hoping to catch a little breeze. Bracing his hands on the windowsill, he leaned out, looked up the street, then down.

“Well…well…well,” he murmured. Now there was an unusual sight. The lovely Miss Mari McBride was paying a visit to the Acre.

She wore a demure dress in a goldenrod print and carried a matching parasol and small handbag made of straw. She walked along the sidewalk with a purposeful sashay that drew a man’s eye, giving her parasol a twirl every third or fourth step. Luke wondered what business brought her down to the Acre.

From what he’d heard, it had been a bad summer for the McBride family. Kat McBride’s death had hit them all hard. Luke hadn’t seen Mari or her sister Emma since the fire, but he’d caught sight of the boys a time or two. The towheaded pullets seemed to have lost their spirit.

Their father didn’t look any better. Trace McBride appeared to have aged a lifetime since his daughter’s death, and they said his wife spent a good share of each day tending to the young woman’s grave.

Not that there was a body buried beneath the marker. Against his will, Luke’s thoughts returned to that awful night. Digging through the smoldering rubble. Finding that damned doll. At first glance, he’d thought it was a child. The sights, sounds and smells would haunt his nightmares for years to come. As would memories of that last encounter with his brother.