The Texan (6 page)

“The Big Bend is too hazardous a place to go with some civilian traipsing along behind me,” he said.

“I’m willing to take my chances.”

“I’m not.”

Bay played her ace. “Luke called me on my cell phone while I was delivering Ruby’s foal.”

Owen hissed in a breath of air.

“Ask Summer,” Bay said. “She’ll confirm that I’m
telling the truth. I know where to look for my brother. I can save you a great deal of time and effort. But only if you take me with you. You can pick me up at Three Oaks tomorrow morning, right after you talk to Bad Billy Coburn. I’ll be waiting for you.”

Bay turned and marched away. She didn’t look back. But she could feel his eyes on her, assessing her, devouring her. And her stomach responded with that appallingly delicious flutter.

THE FOREMAN’S HOUSE WHERE SAM LIVED WAS DARK, AND
Bay presumed her brother must be at the Homestead, a half mile farther down the road, which blazed with light on the lower floor. She parked in back of the house and could see through the screen door that her mother and elder brother were sitting at the large trestle table in the kitchen.

As she stepped inside she asked, “Have you heard from Luke?”

Her mother had risen to pour Bay a cup of coffee from the electric pot on the counter and set it in front of her as she joined them at the table. Bay put several spoonfuls of sugar in her coffee and added enough cream to make Sam laugh.

“I’ll never get used to the way you drink coffee,” he said.

“There’s still plenty of caffeine in it, which is the only reason I swallow the foul-tasting stuff.” Bay sipped at the steaming coffee, swallowed before her tongue could burn, and said, “I think Luke might be in serious trouble.”

“That irresponsible whelp,” Sam muttered. “When is he going to grow up?”

Bay met Sam’s eyes and lifted an admonishing brow. It had taken him eleven years to start pulling his own weight. Bay was still getting used to the changes in her brother over the past year. When Sam had woken up in the hospital after his accident on the football field, a cripple for life at eighteen, he’d railed against his fate. For the next eleven years, he’d been a surly, miserable creature, drunk as often as not.

Her father should have brought Sam to heel sooner, but since it was Owen Blackthorne who’d crippled him, Sam had been allowed to nurse his grievance against the world in general, and the Blackthornes in particular. It was only after their father had been killed and their mother wounded in the same hunting accident—which had been arranged by Eve Blackthorne with the help of her husband’s
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Russell Handy—that Sam’s behavior had changed drastically.

Sam freely admitted it was a Blackthorne who’d been responsible for the turnaround. Owen’s elder brother Trace had wanted Bay’s elder sister Callie for his wife, but Callie had argued that she couldn’t be spared from Three Oaks. So Trace had set about to make it possible for her to leave the ranch.

He’d threatened Sam into sobering up, then arranged for a special van that Sam could drive by himself, and finally remodeled the foreman’s house so Sam could live there on his own.

When Bay had come home after her final semester at Texas A&M, she’d found a totally different person from the Sam she’d always known. The scraggly beard was gone, and his shoulder-length chestnut-brown hair had been trimmed up over his ears. He was wearing a newly ironed Western shirt and crisp jeans and boots with a spit
shine. Most importantly, his brown eyes had been clear and bright, without the red lines that spoke of a night’s dissipation, and his voice had possessed a pleasant Texas drawl without the slur that had so often marked his speech when he was drunk.

Over the past year, he’d taken a greater interest in their Santa Gertrudis cow/calf business, and there was growing hope that this year they might recognize a profit that had been noticeably absent in years past.

Bay hated giving thanks to a Blackthorne for anything. But Trace was clearly responsible for initiating the changes in Sam.

Sam had the grace to look sheepish, but said, “Where is Luke? What kind of trouble is he in now?”

Bay kept her eyes focused on her cup as she said, “While I was delivering a foal at Bitter Creek he called me … from the Big Bend.”

“What the hell was he doing there?” Sam demanded.

“Sam.” That was all it took for her mother to silence her brother. “Go on, Bay.”

“Luke’s motorcycle has been found abandoned near where that Texas Ranger was shot.”

“Oh, man. What a mess,” Sam muttered.

“Luke had nothing to do with the theft of those VX mines,” Bay said certainly.

“That crazy idiot. I wouldn’t put anything past him,” Sam said.

“You can’t think he’s involved!” Bay protested.

Sam rubbed his forehead. “No. I guess not.” He looked at Bay and said, “But he’s been gone a lot lately. Last night’s not the first time he hasn’t slept in his own bed. He messes it up so it looks like he slept in it, so you and Mom won’t worry about him.”

Bay saw the tightening around her mother’s eyes and mouth that revealed she wasn’t as calm inside as she appeared on the outside.

Her mother had worked in the house during the years of her marriage, so the harsh Texas sun hadn’t gotten to her complexion. She didn’t wear makeup, but she didn’t need it. Her figure was trim, almost girlish. The fine lines around her wide-set hazel eyes were the only sign that she’d endured fifty-one years of ranch life.

“What did Luke say when he called you?” her mother asked.

“I didn’t hear it all,” Bay admitted. “But I know he’s convinced Clay Blackthorne is involved in the theft of those VX mines.”

Her mother hissed in a breath of air.

“Even I find that hard to believe,” Sam admitted.

“I went up to the Castle to see Owen Blackthorne—”

“Why the hell would you—”

“If you let me finish a sentence, I’ll tell you,” Bay snapped at her brother. “I thought he might be able to help.”

“Like he helped me into this chair?”

Bay heard the bitterness in her brother’s voice. He was never going to forgive Owen Blackthorne. He didn’t think his injury had been an accident.

“I’m going with him when he heads into the Big Bend tomorrow morning,” Bay said.

“The hell you are!” Sam said.

“Someone has to go,” she said, eyeing her brother and then letting her gaze drop to his paralyzed legs. It wasn’t playing fair, but right now she was more interested in winning her point.

“I could use a drink right now,” Sam said.

Without a word, her mother crossed and poured Sam a cup of coffee and set it down in front of him.

“How did you convince Owen to let you go along?” her mother asked.

“He hasn’t exactly agreed to take me yet,” Bay admitted. “But I’m sure he’ll come around. I told him I know where to find Luke.”

“Do you know where he is?” her mother asked.

“I wish I did! About the time Luke called, I got busy delivering the foal, and by the time I got back to the phone, the call had been disconnected. I hoped Luke might have phoned here.”

“He didn’t,” her mother said. “Where was he when he called you?”

“The pay phone at the Rio Grande Village.”

“Sam, get the number of the store from information,” her mother instructed. “It’s doubtful Luke’s still there, but maybe someone can tell us if he bought supplies and which direction he headed.”

It only took a moment to get the number and for Sam to dial it. The phone rang only once before it was answered. Sam said, “Who’s this?” and quickly hung up the phone. His eyes were bleak when he met Bay’s gaze.

“Who was it?” Bay asked.

“FBI,” Sam said. “Do you think they’ll be able to figure out who called?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Bay said, and then changed her mind. “Yeah. They can probably get hold of the phone records.”

“Do you think Luke’ll call again?” Sam asked.

“How can he?” Bay said. “His cell phone probably doesn’t work in that rugged terrain, because he didn’t use
it to call me. And I doubt he’ll try to use the phone at the Village if it’s being watched by the FBI.”

“Do you think he’ll know it’s the FBI?” Sam asked.

Bay pursed her lips. “They weren’t too subtle on the phone with you, were they?”

“So what do we do now?” Sam asked.

“I’m going to the Big Bend tomorrow with Owen Blackthorne. We’ll find Luke, and I’ll make sure he gets home safely.”

Bay saw the struggle her mother was having between wanting Bay to stay safe at home and knowing that Bay might be Luke’s only chance to return home alive.

Sam pounded his useless legs. “God, I hate being tied to this chair. I’d go there myself if I could.”

“Blackjack is coming here tomorrow to check on some of the two-year-old cutting horses we’re training for him,” her mother said. “Maybe he knows someone who can help us locate Luke.”

Bay exchanged glances with Sam. After their father’s death, the patriarch of the Blackthorne family had hired their mother to train cutting horses for him, which gave him an excuse to come around and check things out. “Do you really think Jackson Blackthorne would be willing to help us, Mom?”

“Despite what your father believed, the Blackthornes aren’t all ogres.”

Bay felt her heart skip a beat. Enmity for the Blackthornes had been a part of her life from the cradle. She’d never heard a good word spoken about them around this table. Her mother’s pronouncement was blasphemy in this household—or would have been if her father had still been alive.

Bay searched her mother’s eyes, uncertain what it was she sought. Had her mother made peace with Jackson
Blackthorne? Could the generations-old feud simply be called off?

Even if her mother was willing to forgive and forget, Sam was not. “The Blackthornes are all sonsofbitches, every blackhearted one of them,” he said vehemently. “And Blackjack has the blackest heart of all.”

Her mother didn’t argue. She merely rose and said to Sam, “Keep your cell phone handy, in case Luke finds a way to call you,” and left the room. They heard her tread on the stair to her bedroom.

“What’s gotten into her?” Sam said irritably, once she was gone. “When did the Blackthornes become our friends?”

“I don’t like them any better than you do,” Bay said. “But that doesn’t mean they don’t have their uses. I suspect Blackjack has friends in high places who can find out things we wouldn’t be able to learn on our own.”

“I suppose Mom’ll bat her eyelashes at him, and he’ll tell her whatever she wants to know.”

Bay was irritated by the suggestion that her mother would actively flirt with Jackson Blackthorne. “The fact she’s willing to ask for information doesn’t mean there’s some kind of romance budding between them.”

Sam’s lips twisted cynically. “When was the last time you saw them together?”

Bay felt her shoulders tense. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that if Eve Blackthorne wasn’t in the picture the two of them might very well end up together. And I’m not so sure it won’t happen anyway.”

Bay shoved herself out of her chair so abruptly, it scraped loudly against the hardwood floor. “Mom would never get involved with a married man. She’d have to be crazy to do something like that.”

“Crazy in love,” Sam said so softly Bay wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.

“I’m going to bed,” she said.

“You’ll need plenty of rest if you’re going to be trudging around the Big Bend. That’s a treacherous place, Bay. Watch your step.”

Bay stopped at the kitchen doorway and turned back to her brother. “Sam.”

“What?”

“Mom …” She bit her lip, wondering if there was anything either of them could do to save their mother from the kind of hurt that would come her way if she fell in love with a married man. “Nothing,” she said at last.

“I’ll find a way to stop him from hurting her,” Sam said. “No matter what I have to do.”

Sam’s threat sounded deadly. Bay didn’t know what to say. But she couldn’t make herself warn him off. So she simply said, “Good night, Sam.”

“Watch yourself around Owen Blackthorne,” he said.

“What?”

“I saw how he looked at you when he showed up at Dad’s funeral.”

Bay scoffed. “The man has absolutely no interest in me.”

“Just be careful. Whatever else you might say about those Blackthorne men, they’re charming bastards. He just might steal your heart when you aren’t looking.”

“Don’t worry, Sam,” she said. “I don’t have a heart to lose.”

AS HE MADE THE TWENTY-FIVE-MILE DRIVE
to Bad Billy Coburn’s ranch from the Castle the next day, Owen considered Bayleigh Creed’s ultimatum. He still chafed at the reminders of how his family had victimized hers. Hell, he hadn’t started the feud between their families. And his brother Trace had fallen in love with her sister Callie. How could you blame him for that?

Owen had done the best he could to make sure his mother paid for the murder of Bay’s father. In a fit of anger, his mother had admitted her involvement to her family. But Russell Handy, the man she’d conspired with—who was both her lover and his father’s
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—had taken all the blame on himself, confessing his guilt to the police and refusing to name any other responsible party. Handy had been convicted of murder and was serving a life sentence in Huntsville. Nevertheless, Owen had arranged to have his mother committed to a sanitarium.