The Texan's Bride (39 page)

Katie Kincaid waited for him at Rocky Springs Creek.

Leaves rattled as a cool breeze swept through the trees and scooped up the edge of something fluffy and white. A petticoat danced across the red dirt trail, bringing Strickland to an abrupt halt.

“Hello, Jack,” Katie purred from a grassy spot just off the trail. She drew a pointed toe slowly up her leg and rested her foot along her inner thigh. “I thought you’d never get here.”

His pistol at the ready in his right hand, Strickland tipped back his hat and flashed her a leering grin. “Why, Mrs. Kincaid, I must say this ambush you have arranged is unique to my experience—delightfully original.”

“I’d hoped you’d appreciate my efforts, Judge. After all, you did seem rather taken with my charms on a number of occasions.”

Lust burned in his eyes as his gaze locked upon her breasts. “It’s safe to say I’d like to take your charms, Miz Katie, but I’m not a foolish man. Where are you hiding your weapons?”

She showed him her empty hands and carefully rose to her knees. “The only weapons I have. Judge, are these.” She arched her back and gestured toward her breasts, the dark, erect nipples clearly visible through the wet muslin.

“Such a feast could kill a weak-hearted man, but there’s nothing feeble about me. Not my body or my brain. So tell me, what’s the purpose of this morning’s exercise?”

Katie’s fingers played with the ribbon at the neck of her chemise. “Branch Kincaid died in that courtroom, and Hoss Garrett is after my neck because of it. You see, Jack,
I’m
the one who shot Rob Garrett.”

“What?” His stare was fixed on her hands as they slowly pulled the muslin from her shoulder.

“He was going to arrest me for larceny. Steven was dead, and Garrett claimed he couldn’t go back to the capital without a counterfeiter—Sam Houston had ordered it. So you see, Hoss Garrett feels that I cost him both his sons, since Branch died trying to save my son from being hurt.”

Strickland’s voice sounded strangled. “What is it you want from me?”

Katie rolled her shoulders, and her chemise slipped to hang at the tips of her breasts. “Protection. I’ll be your wife or your whore, it doesn’t really matter, as long as you protect me when Garrett’s men track me down.”

Strickland took a step forward, his hands tearing at the buttons on his shirt. She felt detached from the entire scene, simply a casual onlooker. “Why did you bring me all the way out here? Why not approach me in town?”

“Too dangerous. Hoss Garrett’s nephew has already been to Gallagher’s looking for me, and as easy a time as I had finding you, Chase will be right behind me.”

Strickland scoffed as he unbuckled his holster and allowed it to slide carefully to the ground. “The Garretts can’t hurt me here. East Texas is my stronghold. They can come at me all they want, but I have the men and the power to stop anyone they send.”

“I know. That’s why I came to you.” Katie looked at his chest and the tattoo that stained his breast. Inside, she was shaking like a tree in a gale, but outwardly she remained calm. Her hands hovered at the drawstring of her drawers. “Are you ready to seal our bargain now?”

He unbuttoned his pants. “Nothing can stop me, Miz Katie.”

Pulling off his brass-toed boots, he tossed them to the ground. How many men, Katie wondered, had he kicked with those particular items of footwear? He stepped toward her. Closer…
He’ll scream
… closer …
There’ll be blood, lots of it, more than when Steven died
… closer …
crushed leg, slivers of bone, maybe severed
… closer…
I really will be a killer
.

“Stop!” she screamed, grabbing the shotgun. She shoved the gun into the trap, tripping the spring, thereby saving the man she hated with every ounce of her soul from the fate she had dreamed for him.

“What the hell!”

Katie’s shoulders slumped as she sank back onto the ground. The very last bit of fight she possessed flew out of her, escaping into the endless Texas sky. “I couldn’t do it. Oh, holy saints above, I couldn’t do it.”

Strickland’s gaze burned a furious path toward her. He bent, scooped up his gun, and leveled it at her head. Obviously, he now understood what had been her intentions.

“Why, you damn bitch!”

Katie raised her head and looked at him through life weary eyes. “I want to kill you. Lord, I need to kill you. But I can’t.” She shook her head and laughed incredulously. “Can you believe that? I can kill a friend, but I can’t kill the river scum responsible for the deaths of people I loved.”

Keeping his gun pointed at Katie, Strickland reached down and pulled hard, dragging the trap out of his way.

“You are crazy, aren’t you? Just like Kincaid claimed the night I burned down your inn. Now,” he said, straightening and walking toward her, “as you know, I’ve been appointed Shelby County judge. I guess it’s time to haul the criminal before the law, isn’t it?”

He rubbed his hand slowly across his crotch.

It was as if another person lived within her body, watching Strickland shuck out of his pants. That person didn’t even flinch as his sex sprang free, reaching grotesquely toward her. He set his gun aside and squatted down before her. With a vicious yank, he rent the thin cotton chemise in two, completely baring her breasts. “Damn, you have a pair of melons on you. This time, bitch, I’m finishing what I started long ago.”

Melons… fruit… peaches. Oh, Branch, I loved you so. The thought summoned her resistance from the wind. As Strickland groped, she reached and found the knife hidden beneath the bush.

She stabbed him in the shoulder.

He screamed, she pushed, and scurried away from him. Quickly, she pulled on her dress, pausing only long enough to say to the writhing man who reached to pull the knife from his back, “Go to hell, Jack Strickland. My greatest regret is that I haven’t the strength to start you on your journey.”

Katie ran for the horse she had tied in the woods. The bay pricked his ears and nickered as she nervously untied the reins and mounted. Now that she’d decided to live, she’d best be about making sure he didn’t catch her.

“Let’s go, boy,” she said, slapping the horse’s rump. She couldn’t return to Shaddoe’s, she didn’t dare lead him to Johnny. People were her best hope. She doubted she could hide from him in the thicket; Strickland was known to be a good tracker. Her best protection would be to surround herself with people until she could find a way to send for Johnny and disappear completely. When she reached the road, she turned the horse toward Nacogdoches.

It proved to be a poor choice. Before dark, the county sheriff and two deputies had taken Katie into custody. By nightfall, she was ensconced in the Nacogdoches jail charged with, of all things, the murder of Robert Garrett, Jr.

Katie wondered why she’d not been accused of the attempted murder of Jack Strickland. But when the authorities deemed the crime against Rob Garrett had occurred in Shelby county and transferred her trial to Shelbyville, understanding dawned. Scheduled to begin in two weeks, the case against Katie Kincaid would be heard by the newest county judge, the one who’d already condemned two men to hang—Judge Jack Strickland.

He was out for her blood.

CHAPTER 20

FRAGRANT WISTERIA CRAWLED ALONG the red-tiled roof line and drooped down into the patio of a hacienda halfway between Austin and San Antonio de Bexar. Chase Garrett sat at the edge of a bubbling, double tiered fountain in the center of the courtyard, one bare foot splashing lazily in the water. He used the other to balance himself as he stretched out on the blue-tiled font.

For the past ten minutes or so he’d been fighting the hiccups, a result, he felt certain, of too much cayenne pepper in the gumbo served tonight at dinner. “That’s what I get for trying to teach a Mexican cook how to fix Creole food,” he grumbled, followed at once by another
hiccup
.

He groaned and thumped his chest with a fist as he heard his cousin’s roar explode from his bedroom in the east wing of the house. Well, from the sounds of that yell, I give him less than a week, Chase told himself. He’d be strong enough to sit a horse for the trip to East Texas by then.

Branch Kincaid did not make a good invalid. It was bad enough that Hoss Garrett imposed on the hospitality of old friends for a private place where Branch could recover from a serious gunshot wound. What Chase’s ailing cousin especially didn’t appreciate was the fact that Hoss kept sending the daughter of the hacienda, a black-eyed senorita named Concheta upstairs to nurse him.

Heartburn got the better of Chase, and he rolled off the fountain. Padding around the courtyard toward the kitchen with the intent of pilfering a glass of buttermilk, he glanced inside as he passed the library doors. That’s strange, he thought, watching as his uncle knelt at the hearth and put a match to kindling. The air tonight had a muggy, head-aching edge. It was not the night for a fire.

Chase’s brow knotted as he moved back into the shadows. Why would Hoss be building a fire when it had to be eighty degrees outside? And at this time of night, in Don Andres Montoya’s library of all places?

Hoss rose and walked over to the desk. He picked up a stack of newspapers and tossed them one by one into the flames. The fire flared as it fed upon the paper. Chase took a look at his uncle’s expression and blinked in surprise. Hoss’s eyes were as hard as the marble hearth, his smile nothing short of malevolent.

What in the hell was in those newspapers? Smothering his hiccups, Chase waited until the fire died and Hoss had left the room. A thick carpet cushioned his feet as he crossed the room to the fireplace.

Only ashes and the distinctive scent of cedar kindling remained.

He pursed his lips, staring at the grate. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something important had taken place here moments ago. But what?

“Damn, what was in those newspapers?” They’d arrived in today’s batch of mail. A boy brought it out twice weekly with his deliveries from the mercantile in Austin. The Garretts had been here long enough that they were receiving their own mail in the bag with the Montoyas. “I wonder,” Chase said quietly. “Would the lovely Concheta sneak me her father’s newspaper?”

It took him only a few minutes, three Spanish phrases of adoration, and one stolen kiss to find out. The señorita met him back at the fountain, paper in hand.

“It’s the
Telegraph
and
Texas Register
,” she said. “Will that do?”

“I think it might,
querida
.”

She handed the paper to Chase, who immediately glanced at the headlines. Political news and the editorials dominated the front page. He could see nothing of special import in such information.

The paper rustled as he opened it, and Señorita Concheta said, “I imagine you’re anxious for news about the trial, aren’t you?” She shook her head. “It’s such a sad thing. Your poor Uncle Hoss.”

Chase looked up sharply. Concheta’s smile was full of pity as she continued. “The article’s on the back page. The trial’s getting press all over the state, so I’ve heard, what with the scandal of it all.”

The headline blared at Chase.
Woman charged with murder in Shelbyville. Trial begins Monday
.

Chase felt the color drain from his face as he read the account. Hell, Katie, why couldn’t you have stayed out of trouble, at least until Branch got well? Chase raked his fingers through his hair. He’d bet his bottom dollar Branch didn’t know Katie was in the Shelbyville jail right now. Hoss apparently did. Sonofabitch! By the appearance of things, he didn’t want any other Garrett to learn what was happening in the East Texas forests. Hoss must really hate Katie Kincaid to pull a stunt like this. Chase knew his uncle held her responsible for Rob’s death, although to Chase’s way of thinking, Hoss ought to be glad she’d spared his son from lingering on in pain. But 0l’ Uncle G. didn’t feel that way and, in fact, he blamed her for Branch’s being shot, too.

His thoughts spinning, Chase absently thanked Señorita Montoya with a distracted kiss and headed to his room. A thunderstorm building in the west obstructed the dawning stars. Watching the cloud steadily dim the sky’s light, he felt as though something similar had a hold on the Garrett family.

What should he do? Branch couldn’t travel yet, it’d kill him. Learning about this would kill him. That copy of the
Register
was a week old; could the trial be over already?
Dear Lord, they wouldn’t hang a woman, would they
?

IT LOOKED like they’d hang her, for a fact.

Katie sat on the splintery defendant’s bench in the courtroom and watched a parade of witnesses—most of them strangers—come forth to malign her character. After the first day and a half, the outcome of the trial was a foregone conclusion, punishment being the only question remaining. With Jack Strickland sitting as judge, she feared the answer was inevitable.

She had held out some hope even after realizing the judge counted her own lawyer among his cronies. Katie never liked to give up a fight, but the day the prosecution read a letter from Hoss Garrett urging for swift and strict justice, she conceded. Apparently, the way out of this mess didn’t lead through a courtroom.

Martha Craig laid a comforting hand on Katie’s shoulder as she rose to hear the verdict. It would have been nice if Shaddoe had been here, she absently thought. Had news of the trial reached him in New Orleans? A weak smile stretched across her face. She certainly could use one of his spells right about now!

Strickland’s smirk revealed the judgment before it was read. Despite herself, Katie’s stomach clenched, and perspiration wet her brow as she waited to hear her sentence pronounced.

Seizing upon the presence of reporters from across the state to further his political ambitions, Judge Strickland lectured, “The murder of a government official cannot go unpunished. This woman, despite her gender, committed a vile, contemptible crime. We’ve heard testimony as to the watonness of her conduct, of the audacity of her actions. Who here can forget this woman married the brother of the man she murdered to secure his wealth? I tell you, people of the great state of Texas, this we cannot abide.”