Texas Secrets (2 page)

She stuck out one slender hand to shake his, her eyes still soft. Too soft. Almost like an apology. "I'm Maddie Collins. Your father mentioned you in his letter."

He forgot the extended hand. "What letter?" Boone had only gotten a telegram, and that only after Sam was dead and buried.

"You didn't—?" Her eyes darted to the side, looking toward the house. "He didn't...?"

"Didn't what?" His stomach clenched. "Why are you here?"

The woman named Maddie swallowed, then straightened, shaking her dark brown hair back over her shoulders as if preparing herself. In the sunlight, it glowed hints of red like the sky's warning of storms to come.

Then her next words wiped out all thoughts of silky dark hair and husky voices.

"Your father left the house to me."

"He...
what?
" But even as he waited for her reply, he believed her, this stranger in too-bright gypsy colors who didn't belong here. He'd been crazy to hope that anything might have changed between him and his father, that Sam had regretted abandoning his sons.

"I'm sorry. I—I thought you would already know."

Her regrets didn't help. At that moment, he knew only one thing. He wasn't through losing things that mattered. He'd been a fool to think otherwise.

Even in death, the man who'd been barely a father still denied him the only place he'd ever thought of as home.

* * *

Maddie watched the shock of her words reverberate through Boone's tall, rangy body.

He turned away, a muscle in his jaw flexing. The wind stirred his tawny hair. Rugged and muscular, he could have been formed from the harsh earth beneath him.

He belonged here, and she didn't. But she was here, and she would stay for the thirty days Sam had required of her. Maddie Rose Collins wasn't a quitter, and she needed this place for a while. She turned her own gaze to follow his.

Crowning the low green hill dotted with pale limestone outcroppings, the house looked like everything a home should be. A place to cherish and shelter, nurture and enfold.

And it was hers, if she wanted it.

At this man's expense.

"Do you know why he did it?" she asked.

His laughter was a harsh bark. "I don't even know
what
he did yet." He shook his head. "Like a fool, I hoped he'd changed." Then he shot her a sideways glance. "Why did he leave the ranch to you?"

"He didn't leave me the ranch, just the house and one acre. He left the land to you and your brother."

Boone stared at her as if deciding whether to believe her. "I don't understand."

She tried to figure out how to explain what she didn't really understand, either. She had been given a few facts, yes, but learning that the man who had fathered her had lied to her all of her life wasn't something you just accepted. He was not Edward Collins, as she had known him, but a man named Dalton Wheeler who had vanished from Morning Star thirty years before.

"He said it was a debt he owed my father."

"Who's your father?"

"He was known around here as Dalton Wheeler."

"Dalton Wheeler?" Blue eyes opened wide in shock. "He killed his stepfather."

People think he killed his stepfather, but he didn't. He confessed and then vanished to save his mother from the consequences of what she'd done
.

"He couldn't have. My father was a gentle man. He wouldn't hurt anyone."

"How would you know?" Boone frowned. "He died before you could have been born, unless you’re a lot older than you look."

"I'm twenty-nine, and he didn't die until four years ago. Only I knew him as Edward Collins."

"Why should I believe you?"

"You don't have to. Your father's lawyer sent me proof. My father didn't kill anyone."

He turned back to study the house. "This was the old Wheeler place, all right, but Dad bought it fair and square after old Rose died."

"The letter said that Sam didn't know until years later that my father was alive."

Boone shook his head, his jaw working. "You can't want to be here. You're a city girl. And my dad had no use for the last one who came."

"You say
city girl
like it's some kind of curse word. What do you know about where I belong?"

He was right, though. She had driven halfway across the country and she still wasn't sure if she was crazy to have done it. She had no life in Texas, no reason to stay.

But it was only temporary. She was beginning her life all over, and she desperately needed time to think, to plan. Sam Gallagher had provided the place, and it had seemed as good as any to someone who'd spent her life on the move. In the meantime, even in her worst-case scenario she'd learn something about her father's past, have a month-long vacation and a nest egg with which to start again.

But she hadn't counted on spending her vacation with a tall stranger who had shadows in his eyes. She looked back at him, seeing utter exhaustion in his unguarded gaze.

But not unguarded for long, not once he knew she was looking. "You can't stay here."

"I don't have any choice."

"You do. You can turn around and walk away. I'll pay you whatever you think you're owed."

She couldn't believe his nerve. Before she could think how to respond, another voice spoke up.

"None of this is her fault, Boone," said a tiny, redheaded old woman Maddie hadn't seen approaching. "Now stop yelling and come inside, both of you. Sounds like Sam's put you both in a pretty pickle, and no amount of getting mad is going to get you out."

She faced Maddie. "I'm Vondell Cartwright. I've been the housekeeper here since Moses was a pup. Don't mind Boone. He needs to go soak his head—" She shot Boone a glare "—and then sleep for a week."

"Did you know, Vondell?" Boone's voice grated, his face harsh. "Why didn't you say something to me?"

"You just got here. You're exhausted. Besides, you know your daddy better than that. He never told anyone anything until he was ready. I knew he was spending a lot of time with his lawyer and that nice young private investigator Devlin Marlowe, but he didn't see fit to confide in me about his plans. Just asked me to hang around because you might need me."

She turned to Maddie. "I don't expect that you're used to this Texas heat. Come on inside and let me get you a glass of iced tea. We can talk there, instead of standing in the noonday heat like mad dogs and Englishmen. You comin', Boone?" She turned away as if certain they'd follow.

Maddie shot a glance at Boone to see what he would do.

He stared at the house, then out over the pasture beyond it. Maddie thought then that there was something unutterably weary about him, something almost...lost. She had no idea what to say to him, given the shocks they'd both received. Her temper drained away.

"I'm not planning to stay for good, but I can't leave yet. I have to stay for thirty days."

Boone studied her then. "Why?"

"Your father asked me to stay here thirty days to decide if I want the place. If I don't, then only you can buy me out. If I let you do it sooner, the lawyer said the Caswells would get the house."

"Dalton's stepfather was a Caswell."

"And from what I've learned, Buster Caswell used his fists on my grandmother until she feared for her life. I don't think you want them to get this place. I certainly don't."

"No one else is going to have this place, especially the Caswells. But you don't know what you're getting into. You'll be stir-crazy in a week."

"I'm a big girl. You let me worry about myself."

Boone's jaw pulsed. After a long silence, he nodded his head. "Fine, then. We'll just have to make do until it's over. I can stay out in the barn."

Maddie bristled. She'd been measured and found wanting, yet again—this time by a man who didn't even know her. "You don't have to stay in the barn. Surely that house is big enough for both of us for thirty days." Then her temper started to simmer again. "You don't know anything about me, but you've already decided my future."

His blue eyes didn't soften. "Can you honestly tell me you want to spend your life in a place like this?" A sweep of his arm took in the horizon and stark, sun-baked earth.

For as far as Maddie could see, there was not one other house, certainly no theaters or fine dining or museums. And absolutely nowhere for her to use her skills as a chef. Of course she didn't want to stay. She would be gone as soon as the thirty days were over.

But his pigheaded certainty galled her, and she would rise to the challenge. Like the optimist she'd always been, Maddie refused to make this less than an adventure, despite the glowering man beside her. She'd do better than endure this stay, and when she left to go back to her chosen environment, she'd have stories to tell for years.

Maddie the Cowgirl. The phrase had a certain ring, and it made her smile. "No, I don't want to spend my life in a place like this. But don't write me off, Boone Gallagher. You may think you know city girls, but you've never met Maddie Rose Collins." She turned to follow Vondell, calling back over her shoulder in imitation. "You comin', Boone?"

When she glanced back, he was still standing there staring at her, hands on lean hips, shoulders broader than the Brooklyn Bridge. So rugged and handsome her mouth went dry.

"You're wrong, Maddie Rose. I know everything I need to know about you. You're a city girl, used to fine things and lots of entertainment. Bright lights and noise and bustle. You'll hate this place, just like—" He broke off.

"Just like who?"

"Never mind. Go on inside. I'll take care of the calf." He turned his back and headed away.

It was shaping up to be a long thirty days. Stuck with Mr. Personality in the middle of nowhere when all she had wanted was peace and quiet.

Ah, well. A good chef improvised with whatever ingredients she had at hand.

And Maddie Rose was a very good chef.

* * *

Having this land under his feet again felt good. He'd known when he shipped off on the tanker that his absence was only temporary, but after his wife Helen died, the sea was as far as he could get from this place where so much had gone wrong. He'd have traveled to the moon if he could have found transportation.

This land was part of him—when he was growing up he'd never expected to live anywhere else. Then his mother had died, and their world had collapsed. After graduation he'd joined the Navy and found a new home there as a SEAL. The teams had become the family he'd lost—until the mission that had nearly killed him. After losing his career, he'd come back here with a wife who had expected something more than a cowboy...only to lose her, too.

He was fundamentally changed from the boy who had roamed these acres, yet he'd expected to find everything he'd left the same.

Sucker
.

He was too damn tired to think anymore. Instead he'd concentrate on the task at hand: the calf.

The calluses on his hands served him well, since he hadn't come home carrying gloves in his back pocket as had once been second nature. He found a rope in the closest barn and ointment in the big barn. He tied up the cow so she couldn't interfere while he freed the calf, and he kept the little guy in place between his knees so he would have both hands available.

Once he'd been renowned for his prowess with animals, horses especially. He'd had a calming way with them even as a kid.

But cows weren't nearly as smart as horses, and this panicked calf strained Boone's resolve. Over and over he spoke in soothing tones and stroked the calf until he stilled enough. At last Boone got him free, then set to work doctoring his cuts. The cow protested, and the calf bawled, but Boone persisted until he was done.

"There, little guy," he said, letting the calf up.

The calf scrambled away about ten feet, eyeing Boone with suspicion before seeking the shelter of his mother's side. Boone approached her carefully and slipped the rope from around her neck, then slapped her on the rump and shooed them both away.

Barbed wire left lying on the ground inside a pasture. His father would have fired a man on the spot. Just how bad were things? And where were all the hands?

Boone rubbed his eyes, wishing he had his old straw hat. He'd walked away from everything when he left, and Sam had probably burned it all. But he was too tired to look for any of it now. He needed to hit the sack and sleep around the clock, then get up to see what he'd inherited.

Why did it all go so wrong, Dad? Did you hate us so much you couldn't even leave us the only place that ever felt like home?

Instead Sam had left it to a woman who couldn't possibly appreciate it. A woman who didn't belong. Maddie had said it was payment for a wrong Sam had done her father. What on earth had Sam done?

Too many questions. Too little sleep. The house wavered in his vision.

Get inside, Boone. You can move to the barn tomorrow. Right now you're no good to anyone without some rest
.

But first he had to see if he could find Sam's foreman Jim Caskey or any of the hands. He needed to understand where things stood. Placing one foot in front of the other, Boone didn't look back toward the house that had once been all he'd wanted of heaven...until the day it had turned into hell.

Chapter Two

When Maddie stepped inside the back door and saw the kitchen, it only confirmed her first impression. This house would never make the pages of
Architectural Digest
, but she could swear she felt the pulse of generations in this room.

To think that her grandmother had cooked here...even saying the word
grandmother
gave Maddie a charge. To a woman who had never known any family but her mother and father, lost in a plane crash four years ago, the concept was almost unimaginable.

Maddie ran a hand across the counter and wondered if her grandmother's hand had touched this very spot. For a moment she went still as though by listening carefully, she might hear the whispers of her father's hidden past.

Suddenly, Maddie realized that Vondell was watching her closely. She jerked her hand away as if burned. "I'm sorry."