Lorraine Heath (24 page)

They arrived home with no mishaps. Loree wished she could believe that Austin was safe. It had been a year since his release, six months since someone had slammed him into a building. If only she knew for certain that no harm would come to him, she could keep her secret buried deep within her soul.

Grant released a tiny mewling sound. She sat on the bed, unbuttoned her bodice, and smiled as he rooted at her nipple, his mouth working feverishly. “Got hungry, did you?” she asked as she brushed her fingers over his black hair.

“When you get bigger, you can help your pa put the horses away after we go to town.” Leaning down, she pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I’m gonna get better, Grant. I’m gonna stop worrying. I can’t change the past, but I can be a good wife and make everything up to your pa that way. I realized that watching him tonight. Oh, you should have seen his face—”

She heard the front door close and shifted Grant within her arms. Austin walked into the room, dropped onto the bed, and tossed the sheets of music toward her hips.

“Teach me, Loree.”

She blinked her eyes. “What?”

“Teach me. I won’t complain. I’ll play the same song over and over and over—just like you wanted me to. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“It takes time—”

“Which is the one thing I haven’t got so just for tonight, teach me one song, one fancy song.”

She shifted Grant to her shoulder and began to rub his back. “You want me to teach you tonight?”

He rolled off the bed and began to pace. “All my life, Loree, I’ve been searching for something, wondering where I belonged. Dallas always knew that he belonged with cattle and Houston … hell, he practically becomes a horse when he’s working with them. But I never knew what I should do. Not until tonight.

“There was a time when I thought if I could make a violin I could find a way to live on forever. It never occurred to me that I could stand on a stage and fill people’s hearts with music.”

He dropped to his knees by the bed and wrapped his arm around her waist. “I want to go see Mr. Cowan—the conductor—tomorrow. I wanna play for him. I wanna ask him to take me with him, to let me be part of his orchestra.”

“What about us?”

“You and Grant will come with me. We might have to leave Two-bits with Rawley, but the boy loves him. He’ll give him a good home. And I’ll show
you
the world.”

The world. She would miss Two-bits, but she saw Austin’s dream reflected so clearly in his eyes of blue—burning brighter and hotter than any flame in the center of a fire, and she knew deep within her heart that every dream he had ever lost had been because of her.

This one last dream he had found was hers to give.

She laid Grant, asleep, on the bed beside her and combed her fingers through Austin’s dark, curling locks. “No,” she said quietly.

“No?” Confusion mired his eyes.

“No, I won’t teach you to play a song. If you’re going to impress Mr. Cowan, you’re going to have to play from your heart, and you’ll only be able to do that if you play the songs that are within you.”

She watched him swallow. “What if he doesn’t like what I play?”

“How can he not like it? You have a rare gift. Your heart isn’t in any of the songs I gave you for Christmas. You need to play one of your songs.”

“Which one?”

“The one that means the most to you.”

He gave a slow hesitant nod. “How can I convince him that I’ll be able to play with the others?”

“You just play for him, and he’ll find a way to make it work.”

“Will you iron my Sunday-go-to-meetin’ shirt?”

She smiled. “And I’ll cut your hair and trim your nails.”

He chuckled. “You probably ought to shave me, too.” He lifted his hands. “Look at how much I’m shaking.”

She wrapped her hands around his. “Just play from your heart.”

“I want this, Loree, like I’ve never wanted anything.”

She saw him off at dawn, his violin safely housed in the wooden case she’d given him for Christmas, tucked beneath his arm. Then she sat on the top step, Grant in her arms, and waited.

She gauged the distance into town, the time it would take him to play, and figured he’d ride home at a gallop. It was late morning before he returned, and she’d never been so glad to see anyone.

He dismounted, set the violin case on the porch, and sat beside her.

“Brought these for you,” he said, holding out a handful of red and yellow flowers.

“They’re beautiful,” she said as she took them.

“I couldn’t find you any that were blue.”

“That’s all right. I like these.”

He touched Grant’s tiny fist. The boy’s fingers un- furled and wrapped around the larger finger that was waiting for him.

“He’s got a strong grip,” Austin said quietly. “It won’t be much longer, and he’ll be able to hold a bow.”

“I didn’t think it’d take you this long,” Loree said, anxious to know all that had transpired. “I guess you had a lot of details to work out, traveling to arrange—”

“He can’t use me, Loree.”

She couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d told her the sun was going to start setting in the east. “Is he deaf?”

He gave her a sad smile. “No.”

“Why didn’t he want you?”

She watched his Adam’s apple bob. “He didn’t think the people in his company would be comfortable traveling with a murderer.”

“But you’re not a murderer!”

“The law says I am and that’s all that matters.” He unfolded his body. “I need to change clothes and repair some fence for Dallas on the east side.”

She watched him disappear into the house, and even without the aid of his violin, she heard his heart breaking.

Loree drew the wagon to a halt and studied her husband, standing with one leg straight, one leg bent, his elbow resting on the gnarled and crooked fence post, the barbed wire curling on the ground like a ribbon recently removed from a girl’s hair.

His hat shadowed his face, but she knew he was staring in the distance, toward the railroad tracks that he couldn’t see, but knew existed. She heard the lonesome train whistle rent the afternoon air.

Austin stepped back, turned, slid his hat up off his brow with his thumb, and gave her a warm lazy smile. “Hey, Sugar, wasn’t expecting to see you out here.”

He ambled to the wagon and Loree’s throat grew tight. “I brought you some lunch.”

“I sure could use some.”

He put his hands on her waist and lifted her off the bench seat. “Could use a little sugar, too,” he said, his gaze holding hers.

She raised up on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him as she hadn’t in weeks.

“Mmm, I’ve missed that.” Reaching around her, he grabbed the picnic basket while she picked up Grant.

She sat on the quilt Austin had spread over the ground and laid Grant near her hip. Austin stretched out beside her.

“You caught me daydreaming,” he said, his voice low.

“What were you dreaming?”

“Different things. I ran into Houston on my way back from town this morning, and we got to talking.”

“About what?” she asked, handing him a hunk of cheese. She’d thrown the picnic together as hastily as they’d thrown their marriage together.

He set the cheese aside as though it really held no interest for him. “He’s gaining a wides-pread reputation for having the best horse flesh this side of the Rio Grande. He’s needing some help so I offered to start working for him on my off-day. I thought we could set the money aside until we have enough to go somewhere on a little trip.”

“Where would we go?”

“Wherever you want.” He leaned toward her and cupped her chin. “I’m gonna give you a good life, Loree. You’ll see. It might never be filled with any of the things you dreamed of, but it’ll be good.”

“If they found the person who killed Boyd McQueen—everything would change for you, wouldn’t it?”

“Damn sure would. But that’s not gonna happen, Loree. It’s been six years. The fact of the matter is that man got lucky, and I didn’t.”

A
ustin sat on the porch, staring at the moonless sky, knowing sleep would be as elusive as his dreams.

He heard the door open, but he didn’t bother to turn around. Dallas had once told him that a man had to learn from the mistakes he made. Austin had never expected the lessons to be so damn hard.

He caught a glimpse of bare toes as Loree sat beside him. He felt a ghost of a smile touch his lips. He turned slightly and brought her feet to his lap, rubbing his thumb over her sole.

“Daydreaming again?” she asked.

“You can’t daydream at night,” he said quietly. “But I was thinking—there’s no reason I couldn’t play in Dee’s theater.” He leaned toward her and smiled. “A special performance.”

“Would that make you happy?”

He moved his thumb in an ever widening circle. “You make me happy.”

She jerked her feet off his lap. Even in the shadows, he could make out tears glistening within her eyes. “I told you that I’ll make everything all right.”

“It’ll never be all right. Oh, God, Austin. I didn’t know, and now I’m so afraid, more afraid than I was then because I have so much more to lose.”

“Loree, you’re not making any sense.”

She scooted across the porch until their thighs touched and took his hand in hers, holding his open, rubbing her fingers over it again and again, as though she wanted to memorize every line and callus.

“My mother hated West Texas.”

His gut clenched, and he wished he’d kept his dream of playing for the orchestra to himself. He’d given her hope of leaving only to disappoint her with mistakes from his past. “We’ll travel, Loree.”

She shook her head. “Let me say everything before you say anything.”

“All right.”

She cleared her throat. “My father bought some land after the war. He got it cheap, and it wasn’t a lot of land. So he extended his boundaries and posted a notice in a newspaper.”

“Your father was a land grabber?”

She nodded. The practice had been widely used following the war, saving men considerable time and effort in filing deeds. Dallas had always cautioned his brothers that the practice would bring trouble. He’d filed legal claims for every inch of land he owned.

“My father used to say that land grabbing was like gambling—sometimes you won, sometimes you didn’t. He was a good man, but gambling was his weakness.

“When my mother refused to move out here, he put his deed and his dream of ranching away. He used to take them out on my birthday, show me the land on the map, and tell me that I could be a rancher.

“One night he got involved in a private high stakes poker game in Austin. He ended up owing one of the players a great deal of money … money he didn’t have. So he handed over the deed to the land, claiming the boundaries went farther than his original entitlement.

“The land was so vast. Many successful ranchers had extended their boundaries through land grabbing so my father felt confident that Boyd McQueen would be satisfied with the bargain they’d struck.”

Austin’s stomach clenched. “Boyd McQueen got his land from your father?”

“A little west of here. My father didn’t know that someone had a legal claim to a good portion of the land, the best part where the river flowed. I don’t know why it took McQueen so long to exact his revenge once he realized my father had deceived him. He didn’t strike me as a man of patience—”

“He’s the one who killed your family?”

“And I killed him.”

She spoke the words with no emotion: no hatred, no anger, no fear.

Austin stared at her, and then he burst out laughing. “God, Loree, you scared me to death there for a minute. You were so serious.” He took a deep breath. “I appreciate that you’re willing to lie and take the blame for Boyd’s murder so I can—”

“I’m not lying. It took me three months to get strong enough to travel after he shot me, another month to track him down.”

He jerked his hand from hers and surged to his feet. “You’re telling me that you honest to God shot Boyd?”

“Shot and killed. Dewayne was with me.”

He trembled so hard that he thought the ground might shake. His wife was a murderer. His
wife
was a murderer!

No matter how he repeated it in his mind, no matter how he thought of it, he couldn’t see Loree murdering anyone. He began pacing. The music thundering through his soul was hideous. He wanted to cover his ears to block it out. He had wanted to find the person who had killed Boyd so he could clear his name.

Not only had he found the person, he’d married her and fallen in love with her. He brought his pacing to an abrupt halt and glared at his wife. “Forgive me for doubting your word, Loree, but you are the sweetest—”

She surged to her feet. “I was seventeen, trussed up like a pig for slaughter, along with my ma and pa. He took my brother outside and God only knows what he did to him. All we heard were his screams. Then he brought him back in and hanged him. He was fourteen, Austin. Look at Rawley and imagine what McQueen might have done to him.”

Austin didn’t have to imagine. He knew exactly what Boyd had done to him, something no man should ever do to a boy.

“Do you know how long it takes for a person to die when they’re hanged?” she asked. “My brother didn’t deserve to die that way. My pa didn’t deserve to watch his son suffer like that.”

She dropped onto the porch, wrapped her arms around herself, and began to rock back and forth. “I know I should have gone to the authorities, but … I didn’t want my father’s name dragged through the mud. And I didn’t want people to know what McQueen had done to my brother. There were no witnesses. It was just my word against his. I didn’t come here with the intent to murder him. I wanted a fair fight. But then he started to laugh …”

Crouched in the dimming twilight, she and Dewayne waited. When Boyd McQueen slipped from the house, mounted his horse, and road north, they followed until the ranch was no longer in sight and Loree had gathered her courage. Then she spurred her horse into a gallop, Dewayne following in her wake.

She yelled his name. McQueen circled about and brought his horse to a halt. Loree drew her gun. “Get off your horse.”

He did as she instructed, and Loree dismounted as well.

“You’re Grant’s daughter. I thought I’d killed you.”

“You thought wrong,” she replied with false bravado.

Her heart was pounding, and her hands shaking. She’d practiced drawing her gun from the holster, but she feared when it came right down to it, she wouldn’t be able to do it. “I’m gonna give you what you didn’t give my family. A chance. ”

He flashed a sardonic smile that didn’t reach up to touch his eyes. “Oh? Like a duel? I draw, you draw, and the one left standing is the winner? And what about your friend here, do I get to kill him, too?” He snorted derisively. “You haven’t got the guts to kill. Want to know what I did to your brother when I took him outside? I enjoyed hearing him scream. “ He started to laugh. “Your brother wanted me to stop”—his laughter grew harsher—“begged me to stop—”

Loree didn’t realize she’d pulled the trigger until she heard the explosion and watched McQueen’s arms flail out as he staggered backward to the ground.

“Oh, God,” she cried as she dropped beside him, jerked free the linen sticking out of his pocket, and pressed it to the dark stain spreading over his white shirt. He groaned.

Dewayne knelt beside her. “You gut shot him, Loree. He’s as good as dead. We gotta get out of here.”

“Help me stop—”

Then McQueen released a deep roar and grabbed her wrist. The blood coating her hands made it easy to slip free. She stumbled back.

“You bitch! I’ll drag you into hell with me.” He started to laugh. “Mark my words! I’ll drag you into hell with me!”

“And he did. He did drag me into hell. I lived alone, afraid that if I had a family, what I’d done would reach out to hurt them. I didn’t know I’d already hurt you.” Tears streaming along her cheeks, Loree doubled over and pressed her face to her knees.

“You thought you could outdraw him?” Austin asked stunned.

“Blame it on my youth, my grief, or my shame. I just didn’t want anyone to know everything that led to that night, all that happened that night. And I couldn’t
not
do anything.”

“So once you shot him, you left?”

Wiping at her tears, she nodded. “He was fumbling to get his gun out of his holster so we mounted up and rode out. We came to a river. I couldn’t get his blood off my hands. I tried and tried, but I couldn’t.” She started wiping her hands on her gown. “Sometimes, I feel like his blood is still there.”

Austin had listened with increasing horror and dread … and more, with the realization that she spoke the truth. She was tied to the land … the missing link the detective had uncovered. He dropped beside her and took her ice cold, trembling hands into his. “Loree, listen to me.” He shook her until her head snapped back and the vacant gaze left her eyes to be replaced by tears.

“I’m so sorry, Austin. I never knew anyone went to prison for killing McQueen. I thought we were safe. I would have come back and confessed if I’d known—”

“It doesn’t matter, but I gotta talk to Dallas right now. I want you to go into the house and take care of Grant. Can you do that for me? Trust me to take care of everything. All right?”

“You’ll tell the sheriff, won’t you? We’ll clear your name—”

He pressed his finger to her lips. “I need to talk to Dallas tonight. Then we’ll decide tomorrow what we’re gonna do.” He put his arm around her and helped her stand. She was trembling as badly as he was. He escorted her into the house, eased her into bed, and brought the blankets around her, tucking them below her chin.

“Don’t hate me, Austin,” she said quietly.

“I don’t hate you, Loree. You take care of Grant if he wakes up. Remember months back, before he was born, when we said he has to come first? That still holds true. Nothing’s changed that.”

She gave him a weak nod. Lord, he didn’t want to leave her, but he knew it was imperative that he talk to Dallas as soon as he could. “I won’t be long,” he promised.

He hurried from the house, saddled Black Thunder, mounted up, and rode through the night like a man hounded by demons.

Dallas loved those first few moments when he crawled into bed and his wife cuddled up against him. She purred like a contented kitten, and he hadn’t even gotten around to ensuring her contentment yet.

He covered her mouth with his, drinking deeply of the glory she offered.

The bedroom door banged against the wall, and he shot out of bed, naked as the day he was born. He jerked a blanket off the bed to cover himself and glared at his baby brother. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I need to talk to you,” Austin said, his breathing labored. His worried gaze shifted to Dee. “You, too.”

“Do you mind if we get dressed?” Dallas barked.

Austin looked him over as though just noticing his lack of apparel. He gave a brusque nod. “That’d be fine.” He disappeared down the hallway.

Dallas looked at Dee. “The last time one of my brothers burst into my bedroom like that, I lost a wife.”

Smiling, she slipped out of bed and reached for her wrapper. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that happening this time.”

He pulled on his trousers before following her to his study. Like a caged animal, Austin paced back and forth in front of the window that ran the length of the wall. He pointed to the desk without breaking his stride. “Why don’t you sit down?”

Dallas dropped into the leather chair behind his desk, propped his elbow on the armrest, and rubbed his thumb and forefinger over his mustache while Dee sat in her chair beside the desk and drew her legs up beneath her. Austin continued his pacing.

“You had something you had to tell us at this ungodly hour?”

“I don’t rightly know how to say it.”

“Straight out is usually best.”

Austin nodded and came to an abrupt halt. “I killed Boyd.”

Dallas grew as still as death and stared at his brother. “I beg your pardon?”

“I killed Boyd.”

Dallas planted his hands on his desk and slowly brought himself to his feet. “Let me make sure I understand everything you just said. For six years, you claimed to be innocent, you allowed your family to stand by you and proclaim your innocence, and I have been paying a man to find proof of your innocence. And now you’re telling me that you’re guilty of murder?”

He watched the blood drain from Austin’s face before he gave a brusque nod. “That’s right.”

“But you were with Becky that night,” Dee reminded him.

“Afterward. I killed him and then I fetched Becky, planning to use her as my alibi, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I know I’ve destroyed your trust in me, and I can never regain that. Tomorrow, I’ll pack up my family and we’ll leave—”

“Let’s not do anything rash,” Dallas ordered. “We’ll just sleep on it. Things will look clearer in the morning.”

“In the morning, I want you to telegraph Wylan and tell him to stop his search for the murderer.”

Dallas narrowed his eyes and gave his brother a long slow measuring nod. Austin took a step toward the desk. “Give me your word that you’ll send that telegram first thing in the morning.”

“Give you my word.”

He watched relief course down his brother’s face like water rushing over rocky falls. Austin turned to Dee. “I know I owe you the most, Dee, Boyd being your brother and all. I don’t know how, but I’ll find a way to pay back all I owe.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Austin,” she assured him.

“I need to tell Houston and Amelia. I’ll do that tomorrow. And Cameron.” He jerked his gaze to Dallas. “I could take out an announcement in the newspaper, couldn’t I?”

“Like I said, let’s not do anything without thinking it through.”

Austin slipped a hand into his hind pocket and took a step backward. “I need to get home to Loree.”

“I’ll come by in the morning and we’ll work this out.”

Austin nodded. “I’m really sorry.”