The Loner (27 page)

“I didn’t want her to have to take care of Will,” Billy explained, talking a little more loudly so he could be heard over Will’s pounding. “So I brought him along, figuring I’d drop him off and let Emma take care of him this afternoon. When I got there, I changed my mind.”

Summer saw the morose look on Billy’s face and said, “Is Emma all right? Is there some problem with her pregnancy?”

“Emma’s just fine.” He turned to her, his eyes alight with anger, and said, “I caught her sitting on the back porch in Sam Creed’s lap, the two of them coiled around one another like snakes. I could hardly tell where one began and the other let off.”

Summer laughed. “Good for Emma!”

“She’s a pregnant woman. She’s—”

“Still a woman,” Summer interrupted. “Being pregnant doesn’t turn you into a mushroom, Billy. I say again, good for her. Sam Creed is a hardworking rancher, and any woman would be lucky to have him.”

Billy harrumphed. “Once their lips were unlocked, he had the nerve to tell me he’s proposed to Emma.”

“Why are you so upset?” Summer asked. “Don’t you think Emma wants to marry him?”

“If I hadn’t left Bitter Creek to seek my damned fortune, if I’d been home to take care of her, Emma would never have gotten pregnant, and she wouldn’t be forced into marrying the first man who asks, just to get a father for her baby.”

“Sam wouldn’t have proposed to Emma unless he loved her. And from what you say you saw, it appears she’s just as much in love with him. If he loves her, they’re bound to be happy together. There’s nothing to blame yourself for. Just be happy that Emma’s found someone who’ll love her and her baby. When are they getting married?”

“Sam wants to make it soon. He wants the baby to have his name.”

“See, I was right. He does love her. And he’ll love Emma’s child like it was his own. Just you wait and see.”

Billy glanced at her and said, “She hasn’t said yes… yet.”

Summer smiled. “She will.”

When they arrived at the cemetery, Summer talked the chauffeur into watching Will while he played on the floor of the back seat, so she and Billy could spend some time at her mother’s graveside.

Summer made sure Billy said hello to each of her brothers and their wives before they moved off to stand alone at the head of her mother’s casket.

“I wish my mother could be here to see this,” Billy said.

Summer turned to him, startled by the comment.

“Eve Blackthorne caused my mother a lot of heartache,” he said. “She arranged for her to marry my father. She gave them a piece of land so my mother would have a home she wouldn’t want to leave, tying her even tighter to that mean bastard. She paid my mother to keep my existence a secret from my real father. And she made my stepfather ashamed of himself for taking money to marry a woman he didn’t love and raise a son he didn’t want.

“I’m sorry you’ve lost your mother,” Billy said. “But I can’t say I’m sorry she’s gone.”

Summer didn’t know what to say. It was impossible to defend her mother against Billy’s charges. They were true. And she had no stories of her mother’s goodness with which to counter them.

Summer didn’t know how she was supposed to feel. She only knew what she felt, a horrible, breathtaking ache inside because her mother—humanly flawed and unhappy—was dead.

When the limousine delivered them back at the church, where Billy had left his pickup, he asked, “When are you coming home? Will misses you.”

“I miss him, too,” Summer said. “Surely you can see I have to stay at the Castle, at least until my father’s been cleared. Somebody has to run things.”

Billy finished strapping Will in his car seat and turned to stare at her. “I do see. At last, you get to be mistress of Bitter Creek.”

“The work is there. Someone has to do it. I could use your help.”

He shook his head. “That’s your dream, Summer. Not mine.”

“Why can’t it be yours, Billy? What’s wrong with us making a life together at Bitter Creek? No more worry about money. Ever.”

She watched Billy’s eyes narrow. Saw his lips flatten.

Will cried and strained against the car seat. “Go, Daddy.”

“We’re leaving soon, Will,” he said, all signs of anger at her gone from the voice he used with Will. He closed the door and headed around the front of the pickup, Summer on his heels.

“What’s wrong with my suggestion? You’re entitled to a piece of Bitter Creek,” she said to his back. “You’re a Blackthorne, too.”

He whirled on her and said, “All being a Blackthorne has ever meant to me is a bloodied nose or a punch in the kidney. I don’t want any part of it. And neither should you. There’s not one drop of Blackthorne blood in your veins!”

Summer stared at Billy, her face bleaching white.

“I’m what Blackjack has made me,” Billy said. “And so are you. The way I figure it, that makes us pretty much the same. Nothing and nobody.”

Fury rose in Summer at Billy’s indictment of her and of himself. Her cheeks flamed and her hands balled into knots of anger. Her voice vibrated with rage. “You can’t deny who you are, Billy, any more than I can. You’re a Blackthorne through and through. And so am I!”

“I don’t want a thing from him. And I won’t take charity from you.”

“You already have!” she snapped.

She saw the shame flare in his eyes before he turned
and started moving again. She could have bitten off her tongue, but it was too late. The words had been spoken.

He reached the driver’s door before she managed to grab his arm and force him to face her again.

Before she could speak, he said, “I’ll pay you back every penny of your goddamned $25,000. And when I have, I never want to lay eyes on you again.”

She stumbled backward as he got into the truck and gunned the engine, then glanced at Will, and gently let out the clutch and slowly rolled out of the parking lot.

Summer had to stop herself from running after him. This time she was definitely right, and he was wrong. He would come to his senses. He would take her back.

She loved him and she wanted to spend her life with him. Why was he insisting it could only be on his terms?

Summer scraped her hands over her eyes. She wasn’t going to shed one more tear over Billy Coburn. He’d made his choice. And she’d made hers.

She crossed the church parking lot, got into her truck, and drove home to the Castle. Where she belonged.

A week went by and Billy didn’t hear a word from Summer. He’d expected her to back down, but so far it hadn’t happened. He hadn’t realized how much he’d let himself hope. Hadn’t realized how much of his heart he’d given to her. There was nothing left for him if she didn’t come back. The thought of a future without her wasn’t just bleak, it was goddamned black.

He was repairing the broken step on the back porch when he spied a dust cloud in the distance, which
cleared to reveal Summer’s cherry-red Silverado coming down the road.

He debated whether to stop working and put his shirt back on and wash the dirt off his face and hands, but he didn’t want her to think he’d been expecting her—in case she hadn’t come to apologize. He braced the replacement step between the porch rail and a sawhorse while he used a hand saw to cut it down to size. The excess wood fell to the porch as Summer arrived at the bottom of the steps. He braced his shoulders as though for a blow, waiting to hear what she’d come to say.

“Hello, Billy,” she said, her hand over her eyes to shade them from the sun.

He took the cigarette from his lips and ground it out on the porch, then brought the board with him as he hopped down, and laid it in place on the risers. He jerked when Summer grabbed a couple of nails from the bag he’d set on the ground, thinking she was going to touch him. But she just leaned down to pick up the hammer from where he’d left it and handed it to him, along with the nails.

“Thanks,” he said, sticking the extra nails in his mouth, so they’d be handy, and pounding the first one in, securing the step in the corner.

“I figured you were going to be stubborn about this,” she said over his pounding. “So I decided that I’d be the one to give in.”

Billy felt a swell of satisfaction.
She’s coming back. Thank God
. He pounded the nail flat, then pulled the extra nails from his mouth and turned to face her. “I’ve missed you,” he admitted. He owed her that much at least. “I’m glad you’re back.”

The pained look on her face should have warned him, but he chose to ignore it and asked, “Do you have a bag in the truck? I’ll bring it in for you.”

“I’m not moving back in with you, Billy.”

He stared at her another minute, then stuck the nails back in his mouth and turned once more to the porch step, taking out his frustration and despair on the nail he pounded into the wood.

“I need your help, Billy,” she said. “Please, stop that and listen to me.”

He pulled the nails from his mouth and threw them onto the ground, then dropped the hammer and turned to her, his arms crossed over his chest. “I’m listening. What is it you want?”

“I want you to find out who murdered my mother.”

“Hasn’t the evidence already established that?”

She put a hand on his crossed arms and looked up at him with beseeching eyes. “I was listening when you told me about your work as a TSCRA field agent, Billy. How good you were at finding rustled cattle, when no one had a clue where they were. How you found missing horses when they’d disappeared into thin air. If anyone can save Blackjack, you can.”

“I’m not interested.”

“If you won’t do it for him, do it for me. And for yourself. He’s your father, too, Billy, whether you like it or not.”

“What’s in it for me?”

She flushed and he knew she thought he meant money. He didn’t want money. He wanted her as his wife. In his bed. Loving him. He just had no idea how he could make that happen.

Apparently, she’d learned from their last encounter because she didn’t offer him money. “You get my gratitude,” she said at last. “And the satisfaction of knowing the wrong person won’t be punished for my mother’s death.”

“I don’t have the time,” he said. “Or the freedom.” She knew full well he had to take care of his mom and his son.

“I’ve already spoken with Emma,” Summer said. “She agreed to baby-sit Will and check in on your mother while you help me.”

“She did?” he asked skeptically.

“It wasn’t easy convincing her,” Summer conceded. “But she came around.”

“What did you promise her?” Billy asked.

“That I’d pay for a hired nurse when the time comes that your mother needs one,” Summer admitted reluctantly.

“Dammit, Summer—”

“My agreement with Emma doesn’t concern you, Billy. All I want to know is whether you’ll help me out or not.”

“Are you going to come back here and live with me while I’m investigating?”

“You know I can’t,” she said. “I’ve already told you there’s too much to be done at Bitter Creek. Please, Billy. My brothers are only looking at the evidence found at the scene. They don’t think Momma would have killed herself. They believe Daddy’s guilty. You’re my only hope.”

“I need to get this step back together,” he said turning
away from her and searching out the nails he’d discarded, making sure he found them all so there wouldn’t be one for Will to find when he was playing outside. He picked up the hammer and began pounding in another nail.

“I’ll wait to hear from you,” Summer said as she backed away. “I’m counting on you, Billy. Don’t let me down. Please.”

Once her Silverado was on its way, he sank down onto the bottom step and stared after her. He heard the screen door screech open and leaped up to help his mother into one of the rockers on the back porch. “You shouldn’t be up,” he said.

“I couldn’t help overhearing,” she said as she set the rocker in motion.

Billy slumped down with his back against the porch rail, his arm on one raised knee, his other leg extended so his boot was grazed by the tip of his mother’s rocker. “She wants me to help prove Blackjack is innocent, when it’s a good bet he’s guilty as sin.”

“He didn’t do it,” Dora said.

“How do you know that?” Billy said belligerently.

“If he’d wanted her dead, there were a thousand less incriminating ways to do it.”

“In other words, because all the evidence points to him, he didn’t do it?”

“Exactly,” Dora said. “Jackson Blackthorne is no fool. To be honest, this looks more like Eve’s work.”

Billy stared at his mother in confusion.

“She loved manipulating people, using them without regard to the pain she was inflicting. She was as vicious and heartless and cunning as a wolverine.”

“That doesn’t sound like the kind of person who’d kill herself to make her point,” Billy said.

“That’s probably what she counted on people thinking.” Dora stopped the rocker and sighed. “Or maybe I’m completely off the mark. Maybe it was someone else who wanted to be rid of Eve and needed a scapegoat.”

“Like who?” Billy said, brushing at the flies that were attracted by the sweat on his brow.

“You once told me that the way you’d become such a successful TSCRA agent was that you always followed the money,” Dora said. “Where does it take you in this case?”

“Summer ended up with Bitter Creek,” he said. “That was the biggest prize.”

“Go on,” his mother said. “Who else stood to benefit from Eve Blackthorne’s death?”

“Ellen DeWitt,” Billy said. “She ended up the sole heir to the DeWitt ranch, and probably a lot more besides.”

“How much are we talking about?” Dora asked.

“The estimate I got from one source put the value of the incorporated ranch and its subsidiaries at about sixty million.”

Dora whistled.

“I don’t know whether the family was in financial trouble and needed quick access to cash assets. But Ellen’s got two sons who could’ve helped her plan the murder and pull it off,” Billy said, feeling his adrenaline begin to flow.

“Good,” Dora said. “Now think of who might have helped Eve if she planned her own death.”

Billy rubbed away a spot of perspiration that was
worming its way down the center of his chest. “She used Russell Handy last time, but he’s behind bars now.”