The Texan's Bride (36 page)

The driver’s expression was quizzical, but he whipped the reins and turned the horses down the drive.

Katie couldn’t stop herself from looking over her shoulder. Britt Garrett stood framed in the doorway, watching her. A single tear slid from her eye.
Damn you, Branch Kincaid. I loved you.

And I know that you loved me.

Damn you, Katie Starr. Is it true
?
Did you betray me
?
Or could it be that the child you carry is in truth mine
?

Inhaling a deep breath, Branch turned around and faced the family. Aw, hell, he thought, exhaling in a rush.

Eleanor stood with her hands clasped to her heart, a stricken expression on her face. Chase looked past him at the retreating wagon, an eyebrow quirked speculatively. Hoss Garrett had swelled in indignation, his mouth moving silently open and shut. Branch thought of a riled-up catfish in a waistcoat.

“Well, folks, shall we adjourn to the parlor?”

Hoss found his voice. “Perhaps it would be best if you and I had a private conversation.” He turned to his nephew and said, “You will escort our Eleanor upstairs to our guests, Chase?” In an undertone he added, “We’ll join you directly.”

Hoss led Branch back to the library, his brows lifting at the sight of the coins strewn on the floor. He settled into his chair and folded his hands on the desktop. “Care to explain what’s going on around here?”

Branch scooped a coin from the floor as he sat in a chair. “I was wrong about Rob’s killer. I’ll be going after him first thing in the morning.”

“This man Starr didn’t kill my boy?”

Branch flipped the coin. “Actually, Starr is a woman, and yeah, she was the one who pulled the trigger.”

“A woman killed Robert?”

“The woman who just left here. My wife.” As the color drained from Hoss’s face, Branch said, “Let me tell you the whole story.”

It took him the better part of half an hour. He told him about Shaddoe St. Pierre and how he’d believed him to be the blackmailer. He explained why Katie had shot Rob and relayed his brother’s dying words. He spoke of Katie’s subsequent discovery of the tattoo. By the time he finished, Hoss had paced the room, lit and crushed out three cigars, and rearranged the entire section of Shakespeare on the shelves. Into the silence, Branch’s father asked, “Did you ever check on her claim concerning the legality of a marriage bond?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“It’s tricky. I didn’t sign it Britt Garrett. My lawyer’s checkin’ into it now.”

“Divorces can be granted by the legislature. Have you made the arrangements should they be necessary?”

“No.”

Hoss slammed his hand against the desk. “Then how in the hell did you ever intend to marry Eleanor?”

Branch looked him right in the eye. “I’d have checked it all out before a wedding. But to tell you the truth, I don’t believe we’d ever have reached such an occasion.”

“My God, Britt. You are married to your brother’s killer!”

“Hell of a note, ain’t it.”

Hoss sputtered and spat. Branch shook his head. “Listen, Hoss, it’s not really like that. I explained it to you, she acted humanely. You or I’d have done the same thing.”

“You’ll divorce her at once,” Branch’s father demanded, lighting a fourth cigar.

Branch’s mouth thinned as he said, “No, I’m going after Strickland at once. He’s the one responsible for all this death and destruction. I’m going to find him and kill him.” Softly, he added, “Before he tries to do any more convincing.”

Hoss’s eyes widened. “By damn, you care for the woman. I don’t believe it. She’s about to present you with a bastard, and you have feelings for her.” He shook his head in wonder. “My God, boy, I’ve always known you were weak. Even so, I never thought you’d sacrifice everything for a chit.” His whisper trembled with loathing: “God, you make me sick.”

God, you make me sick
. A repeat of the words father had said to son decades earlier, a return of the same bony fingers of pain seizing Branch’s gut. He could smell the smoke and hear ten-year-old Rob’s voice whisper in his ear. “Don’t tell him, Britt. Please! He’ll skin me for sure. You’re tougher than I am, you can take it, he can’t hurt you. Please, Britt, please promise you won’t tell him it was me that started the fire!”

“I promise.”

“What?” Hoss Garrett’s voice penetrated the haze of Branch’s memory, pulling him back to the present. But the past still held him in its tormenting grip, so he asked the boy’s question in his man’s voice.

“Why have you always hated me, Papa?”

Garrett sat back heavily in his chair. “What do you mean?”

Branch repeated his question. Hoss stared open mouthed for a long minute; then a blaze of pure fury burst upon his face. “Damn you, boy! You cost me everything, every single thing I valued through your carelessness. Garretts wrestled the Virginia plantation from the wilderness, built it in the midst of hostile Indians, defended that house in the American Revolution. You destroyed my heritage! You and your damnable reckless ways.”

The boy within Branch screamed silently,
Papa, it wasn’t me. I didn’t do it
. Branch the man thought,
You’re a fool for not having seen the truth.
Aloud, he said, “I was a child, a boy. You’ve held that against me for twenty seven years, Hoss Garrett. Don’t you think it’s time to let it go?”

“Dammit, that’s what I’m doing. I’ve made you my heir. You’ve got it—Riverrun’s yours if you don’t throw it all away now. Don’t you know how much it galled me to offer that to you?”

“I’m beginning to.” Branch drew his lips into a long, thin line and approached the desk. It hurt. After all these years it still hurt. Well, he’d made an attempt at being a dutiful son, and look where it got him. For a while he’d thought… oh well, what did it matter now?

He leaned forward, resting his weight on the fingers he splayed on the desktop. Softly, he said, “It’s too late for regrets now, Hoss. You’ve made me your heir. I’m going after Strickland, and when I come back, I’m coming back here to stay. You’ll get to see my pretty face every day the rest of your life.”

“I’ll change it back. I’ll disinherit you,” the elder Garrett snapped, his eyes flashing.

“Just try it, old man. I made sure that agreement we signed was irrevocable before I ever went to Nacogdoches.”

“No, you haven’t met the terms. You didn’t kill the murderer.”

Branch’s laugh sounded hollow to his own ears. “Read the paper. All I had to do was
find
the killer. Period. You just assumed that a killer like me wouldn’t hesitate to kill again.

“Besides,” he added, “Jack Strickland’s the real murderer. You can bet your sweet cigar that he’s already a dead man. And if you try using the fact that Katie Starr pulled the trigger to weasel out of the agreement, I’ll do something you’ll really love.”

“What?”

Bitterness lay behind Branch’s threat. Twenty years’ worth. Why in the hell couldn’t the man have loved him, even just a little bit? He smiled evilly and said, “Why, I’ll bring my wife home to Riverrun.”

Hoss turned a mottled red as he shouted, “You’ll not bring that murderess into my home!”

Branch straightened, braced his feet wide apart, and crossed his arms. “Even better, I’ll claim her child.” He cocked his head and nodded. “I’ll bet she has a boy. Yep, you fight me on this, and I’ll declare her infant—her Indian half-breed’s son—as my own. How do you like that Hoss? We’ll give Riverrun back to the Indians.”

He lifted his hand in a cocky salute and turned to leave. But Hoss had another question. “What about Eleanor?”

“You marry her,” Branch said over his shoulder. “I promise you that as long as she remains lady of Riverrun, she won’t care who the hell she’s married to. In fact, she’d probably rather have you, anyway. All she really wants is to get new furniture for the room upstairs and go to Paris.”

Hoss flinched visibly from the slap of Branch’s words. “Damn you, boy. Damn you to hell.”

“Ah now, Daddy, you did that years ago.” The door shut silently behind him.

BRANCH LEFT Riverrun early the following morning headed for Nacogdoches. Upon his arrival in the city, he learned that Sheriff Strickland had resigned his office some six weeks earlier and had left instructions for his mail to be forwarded to the home of Congressman William Strickland in Boston, Massachusetts.

Gallagher’s Tavern and Travelers Inn wasn’t actually on the route to Boston, but Branch believed the slight detour to be a necessary one. Time spent in the saddle gave a man the opportunity to ponder, and Branch had spent a good bit of his travels thinking about Katie Starr.

He had a notion that he’d made a mistake. He wanted to talk to Katie.

Martha Craig met him on the inn’s front porch. “No, Mr. Kincaid,” she said, all signs of friendliness wiped from her face. “Katie hasn’t returned home as of yet. She sent word from Galveston that she intended to visit a relation in Alabama for a month or longer.”

Branch didn’t believe her. Katie wouldn’t make a trip like that when she was in a family way. “You wouldn’t mind then, Martha, if I took a look around?”

She nodded. “Be my guest. Temporarily, that is.”

Branch knew then that he wouldn’t find his wife at Gallagher’s. Probably she’s with her Cherokee, he thought disgustedly. Damn, and he really wanted to talk to her before he headed out after Jack Strickland.

Tilting his head at an angle, Branch gave Martha a considering look. Then he screwed up his courage and said, “Martha, there’s something I need to know. Katie and I have had a bit of a misunderstanding, and I’m wondering if… well… I know she’s expectin’. Is the baby mine?”

In answer, Martha stepped inside the inn for a moment, reappearing with a shotgun in her hands. The blast landed just short of his feet. “Get out of here, you wormy scoundrel. Unless you find some sense, don’t ever bring your ugly face around this place again.” The door slammed shut behind her.

Branch made the three-week journey to Galveston in a week and a half. He boarded a steamboat for the two-day trip to New Orleans. Five days later he stood on the deck of a sleek English ship as it left the Mississippi River and entered the Gulf of Mexico. The towboat cast off, and Branch walked toward the ship’s bow, looking forward to the end of his journey, Boston, Massachusetts.

But a yearning within himself summoned him to the stern, and he looked westward, toward Texas, toward Katie. After this business with Strickland was done, he’d find her again. They had some unfinished business between them.

KATIE KINCAID had left Texas following her disastrous trip to Riverrun, only she hadn’t traveled to Alabama. She’d gone to New Orleans seeking the comfort of her friend, Shaddoe St. Pierre.

Shaddoe was furious when she told him about Strickland, and he offered to hunt the man down himself. Katie discouraged him, knowing in her heart that Branch, or Britt, as she must learn to think of him, would see the matter dealt with. In New Orleans she shopped and socialized with some of Shaddoe’s friends. Most of her time she spent sewing a layette for her baby—a child who seemed anxious to greet the world, so forceful were his tumbles and kicks.

Shaddoe finished his business on behalf of his ailing grandfather and escorted Katie back to Texas in early October. So happy was she to be home that when Martha related the story of Britt Garrett’s visit, Katie didn’t once fret about missing him. It was good news, actually. It proved to her that she was right in trusting him to deal with Strickland.

A few weeks before Christmas, Shaddoe St. Pierre stood in the bitter cold outside the door to Katie Kincaid’s kitchen. Hours dragged by, and he found himself half frozen and very nearly drunk when the scream split the air: “Kincaid, this is all your fault!”

Katie gave birth to a boy.

CHAPTER 19

AUSTIN, REPUBLIC OF TEXAS, FEBRUARY 1846

IN HER ROOM AT the Eberly House hotel, Katie lay across the middle of her bed, heedless of wrinkling either her gown or the bedspread, cooing and clucking as she coaxed happy smiles from her two-month-old son, Johnny.

Martha stood before the wall mirror tying her bonnet strings, her expression a poignant contrast to the pair playing on the bed. “I feel like I’m attending a funeral,” she said, sniffing back a sigh.

Looking up, Katie nodded with understanding. “I know, Martha. As much as I support annexation, I can’t help but feel a little sad. But remember, although today we’ll witness the death of the Republic of Texas, we’ll behold the State of Texas’s birth.”

Martha turned and lifted her shawl from a hook beside the door. “I know it’s for the best, but as independent as we Texians are, I wonder just how well we’ll blend.”

A memory of a golden-haired Texian standing tall with two Patersons on his hips rose in Katie’s mind. Gently, she fingered a tuft of her son’s blond hair and said, “Some men simply aren’t meant to blend.”

“Men like Mr. Branch?”

Katie pushed off the bed and smoothed her skirts. “Please, Martha.”

The older woman donned her shawl and picked up her reticule, her lips pursed in a frown. She tapped an impatient foot against the floor, and Katie put a white knitted hat on Johnny and bundled him in two thin blankets and a thick quilt.

“Katie Kincaid,” Martha fussed, “you’ll give that boy a heatstroke.”

Defensively, Katie lifted her chin. “I don’t think it’s advisable to have my baby out in February. I should never have allowed you and Rowdy to talk me into this trip. If Johnny takes a chill, why, I’ll likely expire with guilt.”

Tsk, tsk, tsk
. Martha clucked her tongue. “Missy, your protectiveness is slopping over. You’re gonna have to learn to step back and allow that boy to grow.”

“Well, he can’t grow if he catches a chill and dies, now can he?” Katie snapped, lifting Johnny to her shoulder, where she patted his back furiously.

“Darlin’,” Martha said, her eyes softening at the picture of panic standing before her. “I know you’re worried. It’s a fact of life that the odds run against little ones here on the frontier.” She reached out and stilled Katie’s hand, then wrapped mother and son in her arms for a comforting hug. “The trick I learned with my little ones holds true today, honey child. Let them climb the hills by themselves, confident that you are right beside them ready with a steadying hand should they fall. Your children will be stronger for it, Katie, and so will you.”