Intimate Strangers (Eclipse Heat Book 2) (27 page)

“Where’s your sister?” Lucy felt a pang of fear for Brody usually shadowed her brother if her mother wasn’t handy.

“She’s with Miss Roberta, trying to get her to settle down.” He walked beside her to the house and burst out before they got to the back step, “Mama, you need to stay in the house when we’re not outside with you. Just a while ’til we make sure everything’s safe here.”

She patted his arm and apologized. “I’m sorry, honey. I went to fetch something and got distracted. I won’t do it again.” She felt like an old woman when she returned to the kitchen, but the routine of cooking saved her.

When Brody came to help with supper and Roberta drifted in, taking a seat in the rocker, Lucy listened to their chatter and responded with her usual half sentences, all the time thinking about what she would do.
Nobody will have to know. I won’t tell him what happened to me.

It was as if two people lived inside her at once and she grabbed hold of the Lucy
now
to keep the other Lucy’s ordeal at bay.

“Brody carry this tray up to your Uncle Hamilton.” She interrupted Roberta’s monologue. “Hiram Potter will be here soon, Roberta.”

That was enough information to carry them through supper and made certain Lucy would be required only to nod or smile. She served the meal and sat beside Ambrose when they ate. But she couldn’t look at him. And when he touched her leg under the table, she jerked and moved away.

They hadn’t made it through supper before Lucy received searching looks from Ambrose. She retreated to the kitchen, washing dishes and staring blindly out the window. He followed her and took the washcloth from her hand. “You remembered something, didn’t you?”

Lucy turned and buried her face against his chest.

“Oh, Luce, sweetheart…” He cradled her in his arms and made her feel safe while she bawled like a baby. “Tell me, Lucy.”

Shame kept her face averted. If he knew, really knew— No, telling him was unthinkable. She thought she might rather die than have Ambrose Quince ever know what had been done to her.

At the same time, she had to fight her childish desire to tell her husband everything so he could “make it better.” He sat on a chair at her worktable and held her on his lap for a long time, stroking her back and making rumbly noises in his throat.

Later, Lucy didn’t remember walking to the bedroom or putting on her nightgown. The moon shone through the window and cast its light across the bed where Ambrose held her in his arms. Sometime after it crested and began its morning descent, Lucy spoke whispered words in the dark room.

“There were three men.” The rest of the words tumbled out, disorganized and unplanned. Lucy couldn’t keep them inside a moment longer.

“Tell me.” It was all he said, but he slid his arms tighter around her and hugged her to his chest.

“Oh, Quincy, I was so mad at you.” Thoughts bombarded Lucy, and only the arms cradling her in the dark kept her from being screaming crazy.

It was said, what had to be said, in a choked whisper with the veil of night hiding her face, but nothing could hide her pain. Part of her wanted to cling to him as if she were a little girl—maybe as if she were the child he’d considered her before.

“I’m not the same girl you married.” The words hung there between them until his growled reply came.

His answer was stern and uncompromising. “We’ve both changed, Luce. What matters is, we found our way back to each other and we’re together.”

She reared back enough to look him in the face. He was just Quincy—stubborn, strong, demanding—hers.

He wanted to kill someone. Ambrose felt the burn of his own shame. He’d been crazy during her absence, crazier since her return. Afraid to make her remember, afraid she never would. But now it was upon them.

“You were stolen right off Double-Q land, weren’t you? All my pontificating about protecting you and you not needing a weapon seems downright dumb now.” Ambrose settled her tighter in his arms. “Do you know their names?”

A weary sigh preceded her answer. “I was gagged and had a hood over my head the whole time they—the whole time…” Her voice wavered.

Ambrose knew Lucy didn’t want to revisit her terror. But he also knew she didn’t want to live in fear any longer.

When she left the bed and stood looking out the window, her back turned toward him, he coaxed, “I’m hungry. Let’s go to the kitchen and you can cook and we can talk about who we’re going to kill.”

He wasn’t hungry. In fact, he was afraid he might not be able to swallow a bite of food when it was fixed. But Lucy needed to do something and cooking seemed to settle her down more than anything else.

When she frowned at him he said, “Lucy, those sonovabitches are dead men walking. We just need to find the bodies so we can bury them deep.” He kept his voice matter-of-fact and she gave a stiff nod, pulling her heavy wrapper on and belting it tight.

“You’re Lucy McKenna Quince, wife of a rancher and a woman who’s everything I need her to be—cook, doctor, mother and lover. Goddammit, Lucy, don’t hide away from me again.” Ragged words burst from him when she wouldn’t meet his gaze.

“I need to get breakfast started,” she replied, her posture stiff, her words reserved.

He kept pace with her as she went to the kitchen, got in the way when she made the coffee and kept up steady talk about nothing while she cooked.

She was dishing up pancakes when Hamilton slid into a chair, carefully moving to keep from jarring his head. “Got any more of those flapjacks, Lucifer?”

Lucy turned to the skillet, layering the finished cakes onto a platter before setting them on the table with the coffee.

“Hamilton.” Lucy kept her face averted as she asked her question without looking at either Ambrose or his brother. “What happened when you went to Wichita for my mares three years ago?”

Hamilton didn’t even pause in carrying the coffee to his mouth. “Didn’t go to Wichita. Went to Abilene as your husband ask me to,” he replied.

“Explain.” Lucy poured her own coffee and started to sit across from Ambrose. He switched her plate to his left side and pulled out her chair. She sat, tensely gripping her hands in her lap, waiting for Hamilton’s answer.

“We got word that the cattle buyers were moving on to Wichita. We couldn’t afford to make a mistake that year because between the drought and the rustlers, we were scraping bottom.”

Quincy finished his coffee and set down his cup with a click that was loud in the room. “I sent Hamilton to do a little scouting for us and a little politicking. We needed the government contract. He got it for us.”

“So who knew besides you that he would be gone?” Lucy frowned at Hamilton as though his answer was of grave import.

“Luce, I don’t know. It was three years ago.” Hamilton turned to his brother, “Ambrose, help me out here.”

”Tell her. You owe her that since I’m pretty damned sure your affair with Comfort added to this mess we’re in,” Ambrose said grimly.

Lucy switched her gaze from Ambrose in time to see Hamilton’s frown of displeasure.
Hamilton and Comfort?
That was one thing Lucy hadn’t forgotten, because it was something she hadn’t known. But before she could descend into pointless anger, she pulled herself back, rephrasing her question. “Who did you tell?”

Hamilton said, “Obviously, I had to tell Clayton Howard since he sold you your first mare and set up the deal for the new bloodstock coming in. I told Howard before I left for Abilene that the deal was off.” And then he added grudgingly, “I stopped into the Mercantile on my way out of town. Comfort knew I’d be gone.”

It made sense, now, why Clayton Howard mentioned the horse-breeding business every time he saw Lucy. Maybe he wanted to sell her some more horses. She hadn’t remembered that piece of the puzzle, almost didn’t now, even when she knew it to be true.

“So really, Mr. Howard or Mrs. Bailey could have innocently mentioned it to just about anyone.” She took pleasure in using Comfort’s married title, intentionally needling Hamilton with it. As for the affair itself, she didn’t know what to think.

“Comfort didn’t tell anyone. You think she talks about me to her customers, with Bailey down the street to hear?” His voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Comfort kept my trip secret. I don’t need to ask her to know that.”

“Well, that leaves Clayton Howard.” They all became silent. Lucy felt dizzy for a moment hearing the whiny voice again.
“That’s not part of the plan.”

“He was there,” she said.

Quincy cursed the man. “That goddamned sonovabitch.”

“But why cultivate my acquaintance after committing such evil?” Lucy was horrified someone who seemed so benign could have been complicit in such a vicious crime.

“He was hanging around the sheriff’s office the day I got the note telling me you were in Buffalo Creek. I think he sent it. Sounds to me like maybe he got a fit of guilty conscience.” Hamilton’s suggestion made as much as sense as anything else.

The men questioned her until she wanted to pour boiling coffee over their heads, but she could see the need and forced herself to tell her story.

Ambrose recounted what he could remember and Hamilton supplemented the list.

Three separate incidents appeared to be related—the rustling three years before, Lucy’s abduction that had everyone in the area looking for her, and her horse-breeding plan.

“I don’t remember rustlers,” Lucy said hesitantly when Ambrose mentioned them. She was certain she would remember something of that magnitude if she’d known.

Ambrose, looking guilty at her puzzled surprise, said, “I didn’t want you to know.”

Lucy left Hamilton and Quincy going over things from three years before and she excused herself. “I’m tired.”

When Ambrose stood as if to accompany her, she said rudely, “I need to be alone.” He got the grim look on his face that he’d worn most of their marriage and sat back down.

The brothers were still talking when Lucy dressed and crept back downstairs, slipping out the side door, carbine over one arm, knife strapped to her thigh, gun in her purse, another in her pocket. Sheba was saddled and Lucy was leading her to the mounting block when Ambrose stepped into her path.

“Riding off half-cocked got you in trouble before. This is a man’s job, Lucy. Go on back into the house now.” It was an unfortunate reminder to her of their last conversation on that afternoon three years before.

Lucy stepped around him, settling the Winchester into its casing, readying to mount her mare. She should have known better than to turn her back on Ambrose. Just like that the skunk had her around the waist, hauling her away from her purpose.

“Oh no, you don’t, Lucille Quince. The last time we played this game you got hurt and disappeared for three years.”

Lucy turned on him, raking him with her voice in the way she wanted to tear into him with her nails. “This isn’t about you and me,” she said scathingly. “It’s about me. You didn’t protect me then, so I don’t trust you to protect me now.”

His expression filled with pain and she regretted the verbal slap. “You caught the brunt of the bull’s horn, Lucy, but we all got gored. Come back to the house and help us parse this thing out.”

Stern lines around his mouth deepened when he added, “We’ll get Clayton Howard when we go to town. Until then, we need to figure out this game so we can deal with every last goddamned, sonovabitching bastard who laid his hands on you or caused it to happen.”

He held her tightly and she couldn’t get free to grab for one of her weapons. When she flailed around, hands scrabbling for a club of sorts, he said, “You won’t be cracking my head with the feed scoop today, Luce. Give it up.”

Bizarre as it was, she found herself a prisoner. Ambrose took her weapons away from her, leaving Lucy with nothing more than one knife, which had escaped his inventory. She was locked inside his embrace, and once she quit jerking, trying to get away, the only thing she had left to do was stare angrily up at him.

He smoothed her hair out of her face and said gently, “We’re not done talking, Luce. Come on back into the house.”

God, how she wanted to hate him, but—she didn’t. “You will turn me loose right now, Ambrose Quince. Go talk to Hamilton. He’s your friend and partner. You kept secrets from me our whole marriage. I don’t know why you ever wed me since you thought I was a stupid child. I’m not worrying about it any longer. I’ve got things to do that don’t include you.”

His words were harsh as he escorted her back to the house. “Think again, Lucille McKenna Quince. There is nothing in your life that does not include me.” He peered down at her. “Right?”

Love warred with anger and love won as she met his gaze. “Right,” she agreed.

Hamilton still sat at the table when Ambrose led her back inside. “We’re not the enemy, sweetheart. Get your notes and bring them here so we can figure this thing out.”

Quietly, lest she wake Roberta and the children, Lucy ran up the steps to the bedroom to grab her notebook where she’d been keeping her observations. Ambrose waited for her at the doorway and then guided her back to the kitchen, hovering close as though she might disappear.

Once there, he pointed at her arsenal displayed on the table and said, “They’re all yours and Ham’s available if you feel the need to shoot or stab someone.”

His brother glowered at both of them, not finding it funny to be offered up for target practice, but Lucy ignored temptation and smiled her appreciation at getting her weapons back.

She settled in a chair with her notebook and a cup of coffee. Cold flapjacks were sitting in the middle of the table and she forked one onto her plate. All the discord and tragedy had made her hungry. It surprised Lucy that she could eat, but then she realized that the brothers had taken the burden of vengeance from her shoulders and it was nice to let someone else worry about it.

Ambrose’s knee nudged hers under the table and he rested his hand on her thigh, reminding her of other hungers as well. And that was a ludicrous thought, given the focus of their discussion.

It was amazing. In the midst of murder, mayhem and memories of torture, the heavy hand on her thigh kept most of her attention. When she flipped open her pad of notes, Ambrose’s fingers clenched just a little in a stroking squeeze.

“Brother, tell Lucy why I married her.”

Grimacing, Hamilton said, “Oh hell, Lucy, I was with Ambrose the first time he ever laid eyes on you. We were outside of Kelly’s Mercantile. You were with your father…”

Ambrose took up the story. “You had on a pink dress that was ill-suited for the dust in Eclipse and your hair hung down your back, all soft and fine. You didn’t take to wearing it up until after Brody was born. You were so sweet and innocent standing there, and I didn’t have a pure thought in my mind.”