Lonestar Homecoming (27 page)

“Gracie?”

She came out of her trance to see Michael holding out the butt of the gun to her. She wanted to tell Michael it was too dark to see the target, but he'd know it was a lie. It was gloomy, but not dark.

Michael pointed to an aluminum pan attached to a fence post. “There's your target.You need to learn to protect yourself and the kids when I'm not around.”

“I don't like guns.” She stared at the gleaming silver and black revolver in his hand. It looked big and dangerous.

“Neither will a kidnapper.You sight down the barrel at him with this thing, and he'll run.”

“Who are you fooling? No one has ever taken me seriously.” Even Cid treated her like a child.

He winked at her. “It's because you're so cute.”

“Cute,” she grumbled. “What woman wants to be called cute? We want to be called beautiful, mesmerizing, addictive. If I were three inches taller, you wouldn't call me cute.”

Michael chuckled, then curled her fingers around the grip. “Here, take the gun.”

She nearly dropped the heavy thing in the sand. “It will take two hands to hold it.”

He studied her. “You're right.Wait here a minute.”

She watched him jog across the yard to the house and disappear inside. When he came back, he held a snub-nosed revolver with a wood handle. She eyed it and said nothing.

“This is a Smith & Wesson 327 revolver.”

“Cute,” she said.

“It's easy to use, and you can conceal it in an ankle holster.” He guided her arms into position. “Support your arm with your left one.”

“You can do it, Mommy,” Hope called from behind her.

All three kids were perched on a fence post far enough away from the action to stay safe. Knowing that her daughter would see her ineptitude made Gracie want to drop the gun and run to the house. “I can't do this,” she whispered. “Don't make me.”

His fingers tightened on her hand. “You can and you will. Think about our kids.”

He knew where to hit her. She'd do anything for the children. “Okay.”

“Spread your legs apart a little to take a firm stance.” He waited until she complied. “Now sight down the barrel. See that little raised nub there? Aim it at the pie pan.”

Her arms shook as she tried to obey. She got the little nub aimed at the center of the aluminum plate. Her index finger curled around the trigger. “Now what?”

He was behind her with his arms around each side of her as he guided her movements. “Squeeze gently. Don't just jerk back on the trigger. It will throw off your aim.”

His breath moved gently across her cheek. The strength in his arms and hands radiated to her. She forced herself to concentrate on the job at hand. Her finger tightened on the trigger.More, just a little more.When the report came from the gun, she flinched, and the shot went high. It zinged against the rocky outcropping on the other side of the fence.

Adrenaline pumped through her muscles, and she was instantly in flight mode. For a moment she was back in San Diego as the men poured from the van with their guns popping. She labored to inhale through tight lungs.

“What's wrong?” Michael asked.

“Nothing, just stunned.” She struggled to regain her composure.

“If you hadn't flinched, you would have been right on the money. Try it again, and this time hold the gun steady.”

His arms tightened around her again, and she wanted to yell for him to get away so she could concentrate. She gritted her teeth and raised the gun into place again.This time when she squeezed the trigger, Michael helped her hold it steady, and the bullet hit the plate. “I did it!”

Michael smiled and nodded but stepped away. “Try it by yourself.”

Okay,maybe she hadn't done it. Biting her lip, she took her stance and raised the gun. Her hands shook, and she tightened her grip.With the nub on the plate, she squeezed off another shot. It nicked the outer edge of the plate, and she nearly dropped the gun, not quite believing she'd hit it.

The kids clapped their approval. “Yay, Mommy,” Hope called.

“Good shot. Again.”

“Slave driver.” But she smiled and lifted the revolver again. Shooting wasn't as hard as she'd thought. In five shots, she hit the plate three times.

“Not bad for a first try.We'll practice every night. For now, I want you to go to Rick's every day. Let the kids get on the school bus from there and stay until they come home.”

“I'll be fine here with the kids in school. I don't need to go to Allie's.”

His lips formed a firm line. “You're the one who wanted to move to a city so you could be near people.”

She wanted to protest again but knew it was no use. Once the kids were on the bus tomorrow, she'd come home and clean, then go back over. He wouldn't be the wiser. She could lock the house and take the gun with her.While she liked Allie, Gracie wasn't a child who had to be looked after.

“I see the wheels turning,” he said. “It's for your own good, Gracie.”

“I know,” she said, handing the gun back to him.

“Wait.” He strapped a holster to her ankle, shoved the gun into it, then pulled her jeans back over the revolver. “No one will suspect you're packing heat.”

“I don't have a permit,” she protested.

“We'll get you one as soon as we can.” He unbuckled it. “I wanted to show you how it fit.”

She chuckled. “I never thought the day would come.” She motioned to the kids, who jumped from the fence and ran to join them.

Hope took her hand. Gracie glanced at Michael as he walked toward the house, shoulders back, head erect. A man's man. And one a woman could trust if she had any faith in her own judgment. She was ready to believe that she might have made a good decision for once in her life.

G
RACIE LAY AWAKE IN THE PREDAWN
. T
HE ROOSTER CROWED
. S
HE HEARD
the distant rumble of a truck's tires on the macadam road in front of the house. Michael's breathing was slow and deep. He hadn't yet begun to swim toward consciousness. She wasn't sure she'd slept at all, even though Michael had herded the kids into one room and put Caesar on guard in the hall last night.

She sat up and eased out of bed. Her feet felt the floor for her slippers, and once she had them on, she moved to the door and into the hallway. Caesar raised his head when Gracie peeked into the room where the children slept.The security light shone in the window and touched Hope's sweet cheeks as she lay with one hand under her cheek.All arms and legs, Evan was sprawled at the end of the bed, and Jordan was curled with her back to Hope. All was well here.

She went downstairs and stepped outside onto the back stoop that faced the barn. Predawn had a certain smell. Freshness mixed with new hope. She needed to find a bright lining wherever she could.

King nickered to her from the corral, and she stepped into the weedy yard and approached the fence. “I don't have any sugar, boy.” He
stretched his head across the fence, and she instinctually stepped back.

Hesitantly, she held out her hand and let him press his velvety nose against her fingers. “You wouldn't hurt me, would you?” Yesterday's bond would continue to grow.

“Gracie? You okay?”

She turned to see Michael standing on the stoop in his pajama bottoms without a shirt. Just the way she'd left him. “I couldn't sleep.”

“You should have woken me. I don't like you out here by yourself.”

After rubbing King's nose a final time, she retraced her steps to the house. Michael opened his arms, and she went into them. His musky scent buried her fears, and she pressed her lips against the warm skin of his chest.

“It'll be okay,” he said. “I won't let anything happen.”

She said nothing. He'd try his best, but she knew the dragon waited out there to devour any happiness she might find. She should never have dragged this good man and his children into the pit of God's rejection with her.

“I have to go to work early this morning,” Michael said. “Could you come back after the kids are on the bus, just long enough to feed and water my horse and King? Fabio's in the pen inside the barn. He can't hurt you.”

“Fabio wouldn't mean to hurt anyone.” Though she knew and agreed with her words, her pulse sped up at the thought of entering the barn.The smells would be enough to bring back the fear.

“Thanks, honey. I'd better get in the shower.” He kissed her, his lips warm and reassuring. “Want to join me?”

She laughed. “Don't tempt me.”

“It's what I hope to do best.” He kissed her again, this time with more hunger.

She broke away and laughed. “You have to go to work early, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He patted her bottom, then stepped back into the house.

Gracie got the kids up and ready for school. Michael dropped them all at Bluebird. It was all she could do to watch the children get on the bus. Last night Michael's arguments about maintaining as much normalcy as possible had been persuasive. In the bright daylight, she wasn't so sure it was the right decision.What if a gunman held up the bus and took the children off of it? Several different scenarios played out in her imagination.

She asked to borrow Allie's car to run back and feed the horses. The silence at the house made Gracie's nerves jitterbug as she found a dented metal bucket. She filled it with water from the garden hose on the side of the house, then carried it toward the barn. She watered King first to delay stepping inside.

The closed barn door beckoned her. She heard Fabio whinny and snort from inside his stall. She could do this. Fabio wasn't dangerous. Michael knew she needed to stop running and face some of her fears. This was one small step in that direction. Setting down the bucket, she slid open the barn door.The scent of hay and dust rushed at her, evoking a tornado of emotion. It took every bit of strength she had to stand still as the winds of memory buffeted her.

Her mother wasn't lying in a pool of blood inside. There was nothing but a hungry and thirsty animal in the stall in front of her. Gradually, her heart resumed its rhythm. Her eyes adjusted to the gloom. Though her legs trembled, they supported her as she carried the bucket to Fabio.

“Here you go,” she said, falling into a soothing tone. She climbed onto the railing, then poured the water into his trough.

Fabio plunged his nose into the water and drank. Gracie turned around and spied the bag of feed by the door. By the time she dumped his food into the feed bag and attached it to the gelding, it was as if she'd never left this part of her life behind.Why, she could even curry him if she wanted to. She started toward the comb and brush, when a shadow moved in the doorway. Squinting through the gloom, she saw a Hispanic woman peering into the dim interior of the barn.

Gracie took in the crisp appearance of the woman's jeans and shirt, the expensive athletic shoes. Alarms rang in Gracie's head even though the woman didn't appear dangerous. “Can I help you?” she asked. A pitchfork hung on a peg nearby. If she had to, she could lunge for it.

Glancing outside, the woman stepped into the barn, then sidled out of the light. “No,
señora,
but I can help you.You must leave this place. Go far away before he arrives to take you and the
niña.
”

Gracie gasped and put her hand to her throat. She smelled oranges in the woman's voice. Only Cid's voice had ever caused her to have that reaction. She took a closer glance and realized the woman was familiar, though Gracie couldn't place her.

“Before who arrives?” She took a step back.

The woman shook her head. “Ask no questions. If he discovers I have come here to warn you, the journalists will report my head lying in a schoolyard. He thinks I have come to deliver his message. Leave,
señora.
Leave right now, before it's too late.”

“His message?”

The woman clutched her hands together. “He says if you will meet him when he calls, he will spare your husband and his children. But I know him and I do not believe it.”

“Spare my husband and children.” She shook her head. “Why would Vargas want to talk to me?”

“It is not Vargas I speak of.”

“Then who?” She studied the woman's strangely familiar face. “Cid has a half sister.Are you her?”

The woman held up her hand. “Please, no questions!”

She'd guessed right. “What does Cid want with me? I'm married now. It's over between us.”

“For you, perhaps. For Cid, it is not over.His obsession only grows.”

“I don't understand any of this.”

“I have no time to explain it. Listen to my warning. I do not want your blood on my hands.”

Blood.
Gracie felt her own drain from her head. “He means to kill me?”

“When you and your daughter are of no more use to them.”

“What does my daughter have to do with this?”

“Everything. He panicked when they failed to take the child yesterday.”

Spots danced in Gracie's vision. “Hope was the target?”

The woman inclined her head. “A mistake was made that will not be repeated.They are out of time.”

“They? You mean the men who killed the federal agents?”

The woman backed toward the door. “If you stay here, the children will be in danger also, and your husband will be a dead man.”

“They've done nothing!”

“It is no matter.You must leave this place.Today. Do not take his call. Run, and do not look back.” She held out her hand. “Tell no one you have seen me. If he hears . . .” She shuddered. “My life is in your hands. I could not stand by and see innocents harmed.”

“Stay with me, then,” Gracie urged. “Don't go back.”

The woman wiped her eyes. “There is no help for me.Too many times have I turned from the right path and chosen the wrong. This thing I could not do.Maybe I will find grace in God's eyes for the one good deed I could do.”