The Texan's Bride (35 page)

Branch stood as though turned to stone. Riotous emotions coursed through him at the sight of Katie Starr, and he called on every skill he’d learned at the gaming table to keep those feelings hidden.

His mask slipped for a moment when a petulant, feminine voice inquired, “Darling, are you acquainted with this woman?”
For chrissakes
, he thought,
Eleanor
!

A flush stole up Katie’s body, and her blue eyes flashed at Branch. Deliberately, she folded her hands in front of her and turned a vapid smile toward the woman who’d followed him into the room. Mockingly, she said, “I certainly would say so, wouldn’t you, Branch?”

Branch looked from Katie to Eleanor, then back to Katie again. Eleanor, prim and elegant in a green poplin morning dress, looked like one of Hoss’s prized thoroughbreds while standing next to Katie, disheveled and dirty—a perfect match for her unsightly mare, Pretty Girl.

Of course, Pretty Girl ran a mighty fine race.

Hoss found his voice, and in clipped tones he said, “Britt Garrett, your language is inappropriate.”

Branch grabbed Katie’s hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come on.” He dragged her past his outraged father, his amused cousin, and his pouting fiancée into the entry hall, beyond the baskets of flowers, and down toward the library.

Katie punched his ribs. “You river rat, you lowdown snake, you…”

He put his hand over her mouth.

She bit him.

“Ow!” He had a death grip on her upper arm. She stumbled and he kept her from falling. “You’ve enough brass in your butt to make a kettle, showing your face around here,” he muttered.

Hoss Garrett had followed them into the hall. “Britt, what is going on here?” he called. “The guests will arrive soon, and we’re scheduled to announce your betrothal in one hour. I trust you’ll have this problem dealt with by then?”

“Later, Hoss, please,” Branch snapped. He slammed the library doors shut behind him. When he turned, he saw her hand brush a lamp on the desk. By the look of her he thought she just might throw it at him.

“You lied to me,” she said, “the entire time, you lied. You told me you were Branch Kincaid. It wasn’t real, any of it!” Suddenly, her eyes flew wide and her face bled white. “Betrothal?”

He might have taken great satisfaction in her shock, but instead she was killing him with every word. She looked like a disillusioned waif. He took a step toward her.

“You’re Britt Garrett,” her voice was ragged, her eyes bleak. “And that woman—she’s Britt’s fiancée.” Katie shut her eyes. “You’re getting married to somebody else!”

Hell, he’d missed her so damned much. He yanked her into his arms and kissed her, knowing it was madness. His mouth slanted across hers, angry fire that covered and consumed. He tasted lemon and sugar and a little bit of heaven.

Then he felt the bulge in her stomach.

He shoved her away.

She lifted her hand to her mouth, and they stared at one another, chests heaving, gazes locked.

“You’re pregnant!”

She lifted her chin defiantly. “I had hoped you wouldn’t notice.”

“Damn you, Katie Starr,” he cursed softly, raking his fingers through his hair. His gazed dropped to her waistline. “It’s the Indian’s kid, isn’t it?”

“Oh, you… ,” she said, her voice tight with rage. Her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed, she drew back her hand and slapped him viciously across the cheek.

He lifted his hand to slap her back, but the same bulge that made him want to hit her stopped him.

With a wounded cry, Katie stumbled to a chair and sank down. Branch stared at his upraised palm, hating it, hating himself. What had he become? How could he feel such rage, such hate for the woman that he’d… He didn’t finish the thought. He couldn’t.

Branch dropped into a chair beside Katie. He stretched his legs out straight, the heels of his boots resting on the floor. Though they sat but inches apart, the distance between them stretched as wide as the Gulf of Mexico.

Five minutes passed before either spoke. Though the questions in his mind numbered in the dozens, Branch asked for an answer with a single, soft word. “Why?”

Katie rubbed her eyes with her fingertips and took a deep breath. “I came here looking for Branch Kincaid. He was Rob Garrett’s brother, this was Rob Garrett’s home. I’d hoped Branch would be here, or if he wasn’t, the Garretts would know where I could find him.” She mocked herself, saying, “But I won’t find Branch, will I? Because you’re Britt. This is your home. This is where you’ll marry your elegant fiancée.”

Branch grimaced at the truth so baldly stated. He pushed out of his chair and paced to the window, where he stared out at the beauty of roses in bloom. “Dammit, Kate, why the hell were you looking for me? If you think to try and bring up that bond business…”

“I found him, Branch.”

He slanted her a piercing look.

“I found the man who killed my Steven and Mary Margaret. I know who set the fire.”

Branch spoke with icy rage. “Well, you’re still trying to save the father of your bastard, aren’t you? You must have figured out I wouldn’t let it rest until I sent your precious Shaddoe to his grave!”

Cold eyes scorned him as she lifted her chin, unthreatened. “Your jealousy blinds you. I never took you for a fool, Britt Garrett, and I guess that makes me one. Very well, you don’t believe me. Allow me to speak with your father so I may share his son’s dying words and offer the proof I have discovered.”

Branch cursed. Threading his fingers, he cracked his knuckles as he sat on the corner of the mahogany desk and said, “Very well. Let’s hear the lies it’s taken you two months to concoct.”

Katie measured him with her look, trying valiantly to bury the pain this day’s revelations had brought. Dealing with the killer came first. “I can handle the man myself if I must. However, vengeance must wait until I’ve delivered my child—I’ll not put this baby at risk.”

“You’re a nervy witch.”

She smiled blandly and said, “Sheriff Jack Strickland.”

Something dangerous flickered in Branch’s eyes. “Explain yourself.”

She began her story at the beginning, with Rob Garrett’s tormented words. “I always wondered what he meant,” she explained. “In my mind I took to calling the killer Pitchfork.”

Branch rose from the desk and paced the room as Katie related the days following his flight from Gallagher’s. He sneered at the mention of Strickland’s frequent calls and scoffed at her claim of belief that the sheriff had offered only friendship. “If any of this is the truth, which I’m not saying it is, mind you, you were being downright dumb to believe him. That man’s wanted in your skirts for months.” He picked up a paperweight from the desk and studied it as he casually asked, “Did he get there?”

Katie’s teeth clenched. She refused to answer, continuing her story. “Strickland is from a powerful political family in Boston. He claimed he’d come to Texas because he’d been unjustly accused of a crime. Proof of his innocence has been unearthed, and he’s now free to return home. He wanted me to go with him. He asked me to marry him.”

She paused to organize her thoughts, the memories vivid and frightening enough to set her to babbling. Branch stood with his back toward her, ramrod straight and attentive. Katie smoothed her skirts and spoke in a flat tone of voice. “He tried to convince me.”

“Convince you?” Branch repeated sharply, twisting around to look at her. “How?”

She pinned her gaze on the shelves of books lining the opposite wall. Ignoring his question, she said, “That’s when I saw it, on his chest. I realized what it was, who he was. He was trying to make love to me, and it was all I could do not to retch.”

She vaguely heard his whispered, “Make love to you?” Hanging her head, she pressed her hands to her temples and grimaced. “I didn’t kill him. I could have, he was right there. But I had the baby to protect. I was alone at the inn and I couldn’t be certain, so I let him—”

“Oh, God, Kate, did he hurt you?”

She lifted her gaze. Branch knelt before her, his face flushed with fury, anguish glittering in his golden eyes.

Her voice small, she said, “It was a tattoo on his breast. It was a pitchfork in flames, just like Rob said.”

Branch grasped her shoulders with trembling hands. “Sprite, did he rape you?”

She flinched at the words and believed that the look in his eyes, the white-hot murderous rage, was reflected toward her. “Damn you,” she hissed. “Is that all you care about, how many men have my body? No, he didn’t rape me.” She slapped his hands away from her, “I didn’t let him do it. I outthought him, outsmarted him. I’ll allow no man to hurt me, Britt Garrett! Not even you.”

Swiftly, he stood and backed away from her, his expression cold and impassive. “You think this tattoo proves he’s the killer?”

Angry, she nodded.

He took a sheet of paper from the desk drawer and inked a pen. He laid the pen beside the paper, gestured toward the desk. “Will you draw it?”

Katie stood, distressed to find her knees a bit wobbly. She bent over the desk and mentioned as she drew, “It really is appropriate for the man. He’s the devil himself.”

Finished, she stepped back, allowing him to see the sketch. She sensed rather than saw him stiffen and when she looked at him, he was staring at the paper, his expression stony.

“Well?” Katie asked.

He lifted his gaze, looked at her with probing eyes. “Kate, if ever anything between us was true… No, wait. On your Mary Margaret’s soul, Katie Starr, is this true? Is your story true? If St. Pierre sent you to me with this tale, I demand you tell me now. Otherwise, swear to me on your daughter’s soul that you tell me the truth in this.”

Katie hadn’t realized she had anything left within her to hurt, but his words found something. A wave of pain buffeted her as she answered, “How dare you, how dare you say that to me! I hate you, Britt Garrett, and yes, I tell the truth.”

Branch nodded once and turned a deadly look at her drawing. In a cold voice, he stated, “It’s a trident. He’s Trident. Dammit, Katie, he didn’t settle with killing your family and my brother. He’s also the bastard Regulator leader that burned Gallagher’s!”

He quizzed her then, sitting at the desk and taking notes of every bit of information she remembered Strickland imparting. He shook his head when she mentioned the sheriff’s desire for a politically minded wife and threw down his pen when she mentioned his intention to seek the presidency.

They’d been in the library an hour when a knock sounded on the door. Hoss Garrett opened the door and stiffly said, “Britt, your guests have arrived. You must excuse yourself, now, to prepare for the celebration of your engagement.”

Branch threw him an absent look. “Sure, Hoss. I’ll be finished here in a few moments.” Hoss Garrett frowned at Katie, then withdrew.

Katie laughed, and the sound echoed in her ears like shattered crystal. “How inconsiderate of me to arrive on the day of your engagement ball. What a social quandary—a wife and a fiancée at the same event.”

Branch scowled. “We were never married, Kate.”

Katie whipped around and glared at him, her hands planted firmly on her hips. The legitimacy of the child she carried was at stake here. “Yes, we were.”

“No. I signed that bond Branch Kincaid. There is no Branch Kincaid.”

Her fingers itched to hit him. Instead, she crossed the room and put the desk safely between them. Throwing him a contemptuous look, she said grimly, “You fool. Half the men in Texas call themselves a name other than the one their parents gave them. You signed the marriage bond. It matters not whether you signed it Britt Garrett or Napoleon Bonaparte, you married me that day.”

He stood and placed both hands on the desk. Against her will, she noted the slender strength of his fingers supporting his weight as he leaned across the highly polished wood to snap, “
No, I didn’t
.”

“You signed the bond.”

Branch threw up his hands. “Okay, the bond. The damn bond. I signed it. What did it say? I’ll marry you or pay you, if I remember correctly. Well, by God, woman, I choose to pay!”

He grabbed a key from a desk drawer and went to the bookcase where four volumes of Shakespeare concealed a safe. He shoved in the key and turned the lock. Then he reached in and withdrew a blue velvet coin pouch.

He poured out a handful of gold.

She backed away from him as he approached her. But then she remembered that she was just as mad as he, so she stopped and lifted her chin. He slipped his fingers inside the scooped neckline of her dress, pulled out the bodice, and shoved the money into her corset.

Katie angrily blinked back tears. “Damn you, Branch Kincaid!” she cursed, reaching down her front for the cool metal that scorched her skin. “I don’t want your money.” She threw the coins at him with all her strength.

Katie wrenched open the door. Faint sounds of music and laughter floated from the third-floor ballroom. The two Garrett men and Eleanor waited outside, their expressions ranging from embarrassment to fury. For the baby’s sake Katie turned and spoke to Branch before them all. “We’re legally married, sir, whether you like it or not. You can have as many other wives as you care to collect, but make sure you divorce me first.”

“I’ll not allow you to give my name to your bastard, woman.”

Katie opened her mouth to deny his accusation, but then she hesitated. Obviously now, her grand dream would not come true. There would be no Mr. and Mrs. Branch Kincaid and family.

But if she was careless here with her words, her greatest fear might come to pass. Branch’s father might see to it that Mr. Britt Garrett’s new wife, Eleanor, took a stepchild into Riverrun to mother.

They’ll have to bury me first
. Katie gave a short, un-amused laugh. “Don’t fret, Britt,” she said. “I would never consider bestowing such a dishonorable name as Garrett upon my child. You have my word that this baby will carry his father’s name. Besides”—she paused and smiled sweetly—”the French language does roll so pleasantly from one’s tongue, don’t you agree?”

Katie marched across the hall and out the front door, ignoring the cacophony of questions being hurled at Branch by the members of his family. Seeing the wagon and driver waiting at the bottom of the steps, Katie sent a quick prayer of thanks heavenward. She climbed into the seat and said, “Please, sir. I’m ready to leave now.”