The Texan (7 page)

Owen had paid a higher price for his efforts than anyone knew. It hadn’t been easy pointing a finger at his own mother. And as she was led away by two burly male nurses dressed all in white, she’d let him see just how much she despised him for it.

The rough hit he’d put on Bay’s brother Sam on the football field that had left him paralyzed had been an
accident
. Oh, he’d been mad, all right. But he hadn’t been mad at Sam. Sam had just gotten in the way … and gotten hurt.

He’d kept a rigid control on his temper ever since. But his reflexes had been honed by his years in law enforcement, where any hesitation might cost him his life. Which was why he’d ended up with a stranglehold on the good doctor when she’d surprised him on the back porch.

Owen just wished he hadn’t ended up body to body with her. There’d been no way to control his physical response to her soft, feminine curves; that had been instinctive and instantaneous. She wasn’t very tall, but she was all legs, and she’d fit him in exactly the right places. Something he would rather not have known, considering he was a Blackthorne and she was a Creed. It figured that since he never wanted to see her again, circumstance was throwing her in his way.

He’d learned from Paul Ridgeway that Bay’s brother Luke had been positively identified as the owner of the motorcycle abandoned in the Big Bend. Owen couldn’t afford to pass up the chance that Bay could lead him right to Hank’s killer.

On the other hand, having her along was going to be a pain in the ass. He ran a finger across the three tender welts on his throat, where she’d scratched him. She reminded him of one of those small, prickly animals that put up dangerous spikes if you got too close.

His brow furrowed as he remembered the look in her eyes when he’d pinned her against the wall. It wasn’t just surprise and fear he’d seen in her eyes. More like panic and terror. He wondered if she’d been attacked sometime in the past.

Her reactions certainly hadn’t been those of a helpless female. Somewhere along the line, Bayleigh Creed had taken a self-defense course. His lips twisted ruefully, as he thought of how close she’d come to doing serious damage to the family jewels. Luckily, his reflexes had been faster than hers.

He was sorry he’d frightened her, but she should have known better than to come at him like that in the dark. Hell. He was probably going to have to apologize to her. He hated apologizing even more than he hated losing his temper.

And he dreaded the thought of staring into those violet-blue eyes of hers while he did it. A man could lose himself in those deep blue wells. Actually, when he’d waylaid her last night, they’d merely been dark and shadowy, wary and wounded.

Owen swore under his breath. Hank had recently argued that Owen needed to take a break from the job. That he was walking a ledge, ready to go over. Maybe his friend had been right. Was it reasonable to expect someone dangerous to accost him on his own back porch?

But after the grueling day he’d spent burying his best friend—and controlling his emotions while he did it—he’d been wired pretty tight. His quick reflexes, which had kept him alive in more than one dangerous situation, had simply gone into overdrive. But he didn’t need a break from the job. And he didn’t want one. He loved his work.

It was all he had.

Owen veered away from that thought, refocusing on the problem at hand. Bayleigh Creed. At least he’d stayed cool enough not to seriously hurt her. But she was going to have a helluva sore throat for a couple of days. Which might keep her quiet if they had to spend time on the trail together.

Had he decided, then? Was he going to take Bay with him?

No. No way. No how. That woman was not going with him into the wilderness.

As Owen pulled up to the dilapidated Coburn homestead, he saw Bad Billy slouched in a rickety chair on the covered back porch. His long legs extended over the broken porch rail, his booted feet crossed at the ankle. A day’s growth of dark beard masked his cheeks and chin, and he wore a battered Stetson that was crushed so far down over his shaggy black hair that it left his eyes in shadow.

Western courtesy should have had the younger man rising to greet him. As Owen cut the engine on his pickup, Bad Billy Coburn merely caught the cigarette that hung from the corner of his mouth with two fingers, flicked the ash to the sun-seared porch with a third, and set it back between his lips.

Owen had taken only two steps from his pickup when Billy said, “That’s far enough.”

His voice begged for an excuse to fight, and Owen had to resist the urge to give it to him. “I imagine you’ve been keeping up with the news about the hijacking,” he said.

“Don’t have a T V. Don’t read the paper.”

Owen stuck his hands in his back pockets to keep them from bunching into fists. He’d dealt with plenty of wise-ass punks. But there was an air of menace about Bad Billy Coburn. Everybody knew Billy had been beaten regularly by his father the first fourteen years of his life. As small as the town of Bitter Creek was, the kid’s bruises had gotten noticed.

But there wasn’t much anyone could do about it when
Billy insisted he’d gotten the marks from being clumsy or from the rough ranch work he did. The signs of brutality had ended abruptly when Billy reached the eighth grade. It was easy to figure out why. Billy had suddenly sprouted and grown taller than his father, eventually topping him by a good half foot.

As a teenager, and into his early twenties, Bad Billy Coburn had earned his name, becoming a dangerous sonofabitch to cross. He was suspended so often, it was a wonder he’d graduated from high school. Owen had heard that Billy scored amazingly high on the college boards—which meant he was plenty smart. But he didn’t have the grades to get into an affordable state university, and his family didn’t have the money for a private one.

Over the next few years, Bad Billy Coburn had drunk too much, fought on a whim, and looked for trouble wherever he rode.

The drinking had stopped two years ago, when Owen’s brother Trace had fired Billy from his job as a Bitter Creek cowhand for getting into a drunken brawl that involved their younger sister Summer. Because Billy was such a good man with a rope, he’d managed to get other ranch work. But the kid didn’t get along well with others, so the jobs never lasted very long.

Owen figured Billy had the intelligence to plan the theft of the VX mines, and he might finally have gotten sick and tired of living hand-to-mouth and decided to do something illegal about it. So the question was, had Bad Billy Coburn crossed the line from troublemaker to terrorist?

Owen surveyed the lanky cowboy coiled in front of him, malevolence lurking in his dark eyes. “Got any ideas who might have stolen those mines, Billy?”

“Sure don’t.”

“Make a guess,” Owen said.

“You can bet someone in Bravo Company was involved. No one outside the few of us who discovered those mines even knew they existed. But we all knew they’d have to ship them somewhere to be destroyed.”

Owen’s hands came out of his pockets and hung at his sides, not far from the Colt .45 he carried in a holster at his hip. “You were one of the guardsmen who found the mines?”

Billy nodded curtly.

“How many others were involved?”

“Maybe a half dozen enlisted men. And your brother Clay. He’s our CO.”

“Was Luke Creed one of those men?”

“Yep.”

“Was Luke particular friends with any of the half dozen guardsmen you mentioned?”

Billy shrugged. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

“Were you friends with any of them?”

The young man’s gaze was shuttered, defiant. “I don’t need any friends.”

Owen felt a stab of pity at that bald statement of the isolation in which Bad Billy Coburn lived his life. It must have shown on his face, because Billy’s features tightened.

“Give me some help here, Billy,” he said.

“I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire,” Billy retorted.

Resentment for all the years he’d stood alone against the world simmered in Bad Billy Coburn’s dark, sullen eyes.

“Look, kid—”

Billy lurched from his chair, and it clattered backward onto the porch. He took one step into the harsh sunshine, his eyes narrowing, his mouth flattening into a hard line, a muscle jerking in his cheek. He dropped his cigarette and crushed it with his boot.

Suddenly, Billy was no longer the skinny, beleaguered kid who’d been six years behind Owen in school. His shoulders were as broad as Owen’s, and he was not more than a hairsbreadth shorter than Owen’s six-foot-four-inch height.

“Get the hell out of here,” Billy said coldly.

Owen didn’t think Billy was involved in the theft of the mines. But somebody ought to keep an eye on him, just in case. He’d report his suspicions to Paul Ridgeway, and let the FBI handle it. Owen had turned to leave, when he heard a voice that stopped him in his tracks.

“What’s going on out here? I heard—”

Owen pivoted and felt the hairs rise on his neck as he watched his sister shove her way past the broken screen door, tucking the tails of her Western shirt into her skintight jeans as she came. She jerked to a stop when she noticed him.

“What the hell are you doing here, Summer?”

“That’s none of your business, Owen.”

Owen shot a look at Billy Coburn that would have flattened him, if it had been a blow. The lanky cowboy took a step closer to Summer, and Owen was astonished to see his sister back herself up until her shoulder was wedged against Billy’s broad chest, so they provided a solid front of defiance. He waited for Billy to put his arm around Summer, cementing the picture of a happy couple, but it didn’t happen.

“Would you mind explaining what you’re doing here
at this hour of the morning?” Owen asked his sister. Billy’s father had died driving drunk about a year ago, but Owen realized he hadn’t seen or heard Mrs. Coburn or Billy’s teenage sister Emma since he’d arrived. Then he remembered it was Sunday. They were probably both at church. Which was why Summer was here now, so she could be alone with Billy. He frowned, as he remembered how she’d been tucking in the tails of her shirt.

Summer opened her mouth, then shut it again, before she finally spoke. “I’m here visiting my friend.”

“Billy Coburn doesn’t have any friends,” Owen said. “He told me so himself.”

“I told you I didn’t
need
any friends,” the dangerous young man corrected. “Your sister is just what she said. A
friend
.”

A frown of confusion creased Owen’s brow. “What could you and Bad Billy Coburn possibly have in common?” he asked his sister.

“His name is Billy,” Summer replied heatedly. “Plain Billy.”

They’d had this argument before. Owen nodded curtly, conceding the point. “Answer the question.”

“You’re not my father, Owen.”

“Does Dad know you hang out here?”

She made a face. “What I do in my free time is none of Daddy’s business, either.”

Owen noticed that Billy edged protectively closer to her, although his hands remained at his sides. If they had been intimate, Owen felt sure Billy would have touched her. So they must be “just friends.” But Owen couldn’t imagine why Billy was keeping a respectful distance. He was reputed to be as wild in his dealings with women as he was in the rest of his life.

God knew, Summer had a mind of her own. He’d be wasting his time telling her to stay away from Bad Billy Coburn, that he was a good-for-nothing, hell-seeking wastrel, who’d never amount to anything. But he could make his position clear to Billy. He met the other man’s taunting gaze and said, “If you lay a hand on my sister, I’ll make sure you live to regret it.”

Summer shook her head in disgust. “You’re wasting your threats, Owen. I told you, Billy and I are
friends
.”

“I don’t think much of your choice of friends, little sister.”

Billy’s eyes narrowed at the insult, and the same muscle flexed in his cheek. He took a half step forward, but Summer laid her hand gently on his forearm.

Billy stopped. But he vibrated with rage.

“I think you should leave now, Owen,” she said.

Owen resisted the urge to grab his sister out of Bad Billy’s clutches and haul her away with him. But the days were long gone when she’d been a toddler learning to walk, and he’d been her big brother, holding her hand, making sure no harm came to her. At twenty-one she was an adult, able to make her own decisions, no matter how ill-considered he thought they were. He made himself back off.

“Shall I tell Dad you’ll be home for Sunday brunch?” he asked.

“Dad won’t be there himself. He’s gone to Three Oaks to see Mrs. Creed.”

Owen felt acid rise in his throat. Eighteen months ago, when his father had heard from his mother’s own lips that she’d been unfaithful to him with his
segundo
Russell Handy, Blackjack had vowed to divorce her. His mother had said she’d make him sorry if he tried. She was doing her best—from the sanitarium where she’d been caged—to prevent the dissolution of their thirty-three-year marriage.

Owen hadn’t expected his father to start courting the Widow Creed before the divorce was final. To be honest, even though Blackjack had said he wanted out of the marriage, Owen hadn’t really believed his father would go through with a divorce. Texas divorce laws didn’t necessarily divide things fifty-fifty. They allowed the judge to give either spouse as much of the marital property as the judge deemed fair. With the right lawyers, his mother could skin his father alive.

Which left Owen with only one conclusion: the old man must really want that Creed woman.

“Daddy took his championship cutter Smart Little Doc over to Three Oaks this morning, to stand stud to Mrs. Creed’s mare Sugar Pep,” Summer explained.

Owen felt a surge of relief but managed not to sigh. “You mean he’s there on business.”

“Why else would he go to Three Oaks?”

Owen was grateful for his sister’s naïveté—or willing blindness—whichever it was. Although, even a blind man could have sensed the yearning between his father and Lauren Creed whenever they got anywhere near one another, even before Jesse Creed’s death. It had been a major source of friction between the Blackthornes and the Creeds over the past thirty-odd years, keeping the feud between their two families alive.