Luke turned his back on her and walked away. No, Luke, please, come back. Don’t abandon me. Save me, Luke. Please, save me.
Suddenly her father towered over her, his eyes shooting hot beams of fire into her. She cried out from the burning rays of his gaze.
“No, Daddy, please. Don’t. Don’t!”
His big fist rammed into her belly. She doubled over and fell to the ground. Tune pain shot through her like a knife blade.
Junior and Benita helped her to her feet, but she drew away from them quickly. Both of them were covered in blood. Her daddy’s blood.
Her mother slapped her, screamed at her, damned her for bringing the curse of Luke McClendon into their lives.
“Leave her alone, Phyllis,” Eddie said. “Can’t you see that she’s in shock. Don’t worry about her. She’ll do what you tell her to and say whatever we need for her to say. ”
The world spun around her, as if she’d been caught up inside a tornado. Memories flashed by like ten-second segments on a television screen.
Her father lying on the ground, the pitchfork stuck in his chest. Benita crying softly. Junior staring off into space. Her mother arguing with Eddie.
And then she wasn’t on the Circle A anymore. She was at the Luma County courthouse, testifying against Luke at his trial.
He looked at her with dead eyes. And she knew he hated her. “Please don’t hate me. Please. I can’t remember. I can’t. Mother forced me to take the stand. She threatened to kill our baby if I didn’t. Don’t hate me.”
The courthouse disappeared into a swirling gray mist.
A kind hand stroked her brow. A soft voice assured her that she would be all right. A nurse. The nurse at Millones, comforting her after she’d lost her baby. Luke’s baby. Their baby had died.
She cried out, pleading with God not to take her baby. It was all she had of Luke.
“It’s all right, Deanna,” the nurse said. “You can have other babies someday.”
But not Luke’s babies. Not ever Luke’s. And if I can’t have Luke’s children, I don’t want any other babies.
“Luke! Luke! Luke!” She screamed his name repeatedly.
Deanna screamed his name. Luke snapped his head around and looked in Deanna’s direction. What the hell? The expression on her face scared the hell out of him. She was in a trance, her eyes glazed over and her face deathly pale.
“I heard she was crazy,” Old Man Cooley said. “That Atchley girl who saw you kill her pappy. She disappeared after your trial, didn’t she? I always figured she was in the looney bin somewhere.”
As he climbed the fence, jumped down and ran toward Deanna, Luke ignored Otis Cooley. Deanna swayed on her feet as she stumbled in a haphazard fashion.
“You ought to get that gal into town to see a doctor. She’s touched in the head all right.” Otis tossed the pitchfork back into the truck bed.
Deanna’s knees buckled. She grasped out into thin air. “Luke. I’m sorry. Please, Luke.” She crumpled like a starched lace doily dropped into warm water.
Luke caught her before she hit the ground, then lifted her into his arms and headed toward the main house.
“She ain’t dead, is she?” Otis asked.
“No, she just fainted,” Luke called out to the old man. “Our business is finished, isn’t it, Mr. Cooley? You can go on home now. And take your damn pitchfork with you!”
Luke tromped across the yard, through the arched porch openings and straight for the front door. Holding an unconscious Deanna close to his chest, he leaned over and pressed down on the pewter door handle.
Kizzie swung open the door. “Oh, Lordy. What happened? We heard Deanna screaming.” Alva stood directly behind Kizzie.
Luke swept past them, taking Deanna straight into the living room, where he deposited her on the sofa. Kneeling beside her, he shoved the honey-brown strands of hair away from her face.
Kizzie placed her hand on Luke’s shoulder. “What happened? Is she hurt?”
“She had some kind of spell,” Luke said. “Right before she passed out, she looked like she was in a trance.”
“Where was she?” Kizzie asked. “And what brought on this spell of hers?”
“Should I call for an ambulance?” Alva gathered her apron into her hands, knotting the edge into a wad.
“Not yet,” Kizzie said. “Go get a damp cloth and we’ll see if we can bring her around.”
Luke stroked Deanna’s cheek and called her name. “Come on. Wake up. You’re safe.”
“Luke, did she fall and hit her head?” Kizzie squeezed his shoulder.
“No. I caught her before she hit the ground. She came nosing around out there by the barn while I was corralling Hercules. Old Man Cooley pulled a pitchfork out of the back end of his truck and—”
“That stupid old fool! What was he thinking, hauling out a pitchfork in front of you and Deanna?”
“To give the old coot the benefit of the doubt, I don’t think he even remembered anything about Rayburn Atchley’s murder. Not until Deanna started acting funny. Then he said something about he figured she’d been in a looney bin all these years.”
“What a ridiculous thing for him to have said.”
“Deanna was acting mighty strange,” Luke admitted. “I think she was having one of those memory flashbacks. She kept saying odd things.”
“What things?”
“I didn’t pay much attention. At first, I thought she was talking to Mr. Cooley. Then I heard her say something like, ‘No, Daddy, don’t,’ but I just ignored her. She also said, ‘Don’t hate me.’ Then a few minutes later she screamed my name over and over again.”
“That poor girl.”
Luke glanced up at his stepmother and realized that she believed Deanna was worthy of her pity. He looked back at Deanna. She couldn’t have faked this. Whatever had happened to her had been real.
She hasn’t been lying to you, a voice in his head whispered. She really has been suffering from partial amnesia for fifteen years. And she honestly wants to remember. She wants to clear your name.
“Here’s a nice cool cloth.” Alva handed the damp rag to Kizzie, who in turn gave it to Luke.
He washed her face gently, then patted her cheeks. “Come on, babe. Wake up.”
“Luke?” she said groggily.
“I’m right here.” He clasped her hand in his.
“Luke, please...” Her eyelids fluttered.
“It’s all right, Deanna. I’m here with you and I know seeing Mr. Cooley holding that pitchfork unnerved you a little.”
She opened her eyes, then closed them. “I remembered... I...I think I—”
“Don’t worry about remembering right now. Just take it easy. You passed out on me and scared Kizzie and Alva half to death.”
She opened her eyes again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—Oh, Luke, I remembered being in the hospital after I lost our baby. The nurse told me I could have other babies. But I didn’t want any other baby. Only yours.” She tried to sit up.
Luke grabbed her shoulders and pressed her down onto the sofa. “Just lie there and rest.” His chest tightened. His jaw clenched. Pain stabbed him square in the gut.
She gripped his hand. “But don’t you see. The memories are getting stronger and stronger. And they’re all coming at once. A bit of this memory and a bit of that one. My mind is like a cracked dam with all these tiny holes spewing water.” She reached out and clutched both of his forearms. “I wish the dam would burst and I’d remember everything.”
“You will, babe. You will. Just not right now. You’re too weak to try to remember any more about the past.”
“But I have to remember,” she said. “Don’t you understand? If I can’t remember what happened, you’ll never be free. You’ll go on hating me, go on feeling unloved and unworthy. I have to remember. For your sake, Luke.”
He pulled away from her and fled the living room.
“Luke.” Deanna tried to sit up again.
Kizzie sat
down on the sofa beside Deanna and helped her into a sitting position. “Give him some time alone. He’ll be back. I think you finally got through to him.”
“You believe me, don’t you?” Deanna gazed incredulously at Kizzie.
“Yes, I believe you. And I think Luke does, too.”
“I never meant to hurt him. Never. I loved him, but I was so afraid of Daddy, and then Mother threatened to—”
Kizzie patted Deanna’s cheek. “Don’t excite yourself so, girl. You’re just coming around from a dead faint. No need to try to explain your whole life to me in five minutes.”
Deanna lifted her head from the sofa, testing to see if she was able to sit up. “I think I’m all right. I’d like to sit up now, please.”
Kizzie helped her sit, then motioned to Alva. “Go in the kitchen and pour up a shot of whiskey and bring it to me.”
“Think you’re going to be all right now, Miss Deanna?” Alva asked.
“Yes, thank you. I’m feeling much better.”
Kizzie shooed Alva out of the room, then turned her attention to Deanna. “As soon as Alva brings the whiskey, I want you to drink it and then I’ll walk you back over to the cottage and stay with you for a while. I don’t think Luke will be ready to see you or talk to you right away.”
“I was looking for Luke this morning when I came upon Mr. Cooley, right after he’d delivered Hercules. I’d decided to tell Luke that I was leaving Montrose, that I’d given up on him.”
“And now, do you still want to leave?” Kizzie asked.
“I don’t know.” Deanna rubbed her aching forehead. “I want to help Luke. He’s in so much pain and I know that a great deal of it is my fault.”
“Not all of Luke’s problems are your fault.” Kizzie shook her head sadly. “Luke’s life started out all wrong, with no father and a young half-Cherokee mother trying to make it alone in the white world. All Luke knew for fifteen years was that he was a quarter-breed bastard whose mother didn’t earn enough money to put food on the table half the time. That boy grew up wild and lonely, without any self-confidence. After she died and he came looking for the man she’d told him was his father, he was prepared for rejection. I don’t think he knew how to handle the fact that Baxter and I accepted him into the family so quickly. Or that Baxter legally recognized him as his son less than a year after he showed up on our doorstep.”
“Yes, I know all about Luke’s childhood, but he had just begun to fit in, to think of himself as a real McClendon, when...when my father...” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words.
“When your father took a horsewhip and nearly beat my boy to death.”
“Luke might have been predisposed to being a loner, filled with rage and hatred, but if I hadn’t betrayed him, if he hadn’t spent five years in prison, then—”
The front door flew open just as Alva returned from the kitchen. Kizzie and Deanna glanced up at the dusty cowpoke standing in the entrance foyer.
“Les Cunningham, dust off them boots before you come in this house,” Alva scolded the middle-aged man.
“Sorry about your clean floors, Alva, but I’ve got to see Luke. Right now.” Les removed his sweat-stained Stetson, then nodded when he saw Kizzie in the living room. “Good day, Mrs. McClendon.”
“What seems to be the problem, Les?” Kizzie asked.
“Well, ma’am, I need to see Luke.”
“Alva!” Kizzie motioned the housekeeper to her. “Bring me that whiskey, then go tell Mr. Luke that Les is here and it’s urgent.” Cocking her head to one side, Kizzie gazed at the ranch hand. “That is right, isn’t it, Les? This is an urgent matter?”
“Yes, ma’am, it most definitely is.”
Alva rushed over, handed the shot glass to Kizzie and hurried off to find Luke. Kizzie gave the whiskey to Deanna.
“Drink it all. Now.”
Deanna followed her instructions. The straight whiskey burned as it went down and landed in her stomach like a fireball. She coughed a couple of times and gasped for air.
Luke appeared suddenly and Deanna wondered where he’d been and what he’d been thinking. There was a tired, pained look in his eyes.
“What’s this urgent matter, Les?” Luke asked.
“Well, you might ought to come with me, Luke. Out to the eastern range. I got Bud keeping an eye on things. Seems somebody done gone and shot about twenty head of our cattle. Killed with a rifle, I’d say, at long range. Just left them lying out there.”
“When did you discover the dead cattle?” Luke glanced into the living room straight at Kizzie.
“Just a while ago. Me and Bud was checking for new calves when we come up on the cattle. God, Luke, who do you think would want to kill our cattle like that? Wasn’t nobody hungry or they’d have killed one and taken the meat. Somebody did this for pure meanness.”
“You go on with Les and have a look,” Kizzie said. “I’ll call Tyler and tell him what’s happened.”
Luke glanced quickly at Deanna. Kizzie nodded understanding.
“I’ll take care of our guest, too.”
Luke didn’t say a word to Deanna before he hurried out the front door with Les Cunningham.
Somewhere deep inside, in her gut, she wondered why anyone would want to hurt the McClendons. And the only answer that came to her was the Atchleys. But why? Why would her family want to harm Luke’s family—now—when there was no reason. Or was there?
“You just sit here and take it easy,” Kizzie said. “I’ve got to call Tyler. As the sheriff, he’ll have to investigate the crime. And as a McClendon, he has a stake in anything that happens on Montrose.”
“Who would have committed such a senseless act?” Deanna wanted any explanation that would eliminate her fears about her family’s involvement.
“I don’t know. But when Luke finds out, there’s going to be hell to pay.”
“Well, Mama, I sure am glad you talked me into staying for dinner.” Tall, lean Tyler McClendon leaned back in the chair and patted his firm stomach. “I don’t get many home-cooked meals.”
“If you came to visit more—” Kizzie said.
“I have a job, Mama, and it’s not here on Montrose.”
“It is today,” Luke said. “We’ve got twenty head of cattle that were buzzard bait when Les and Bud found them. I’ve got to know who killed those animals and why.”
“Well, big brother, you’ve made your share of enemies over the years,” Tyler said. “Anybody you pissed off recently?”
“You think somebody got mad at Luke and killed twenty head of our cattle to get back at him?” Kizzie glared at her son, disbelief in her eyes.
“There’s got to be a reason for such senseless slaughter.” Tyler lifted his iced tea glass. “Whoever killed those animals did it to make a point and my guess is their point is to hurt this ranch, this family.”
“What are the odds you’ll find out who did it?” Deanna asked.
“Well, that depends.” Tyler bestowed a warm smile on their dinner guest. “If we can figure out who Luke or even Grant or I ticked off, we might come up with a list of suspects. Or this person or persons might strike again.”
“What do you mean they might strike again?” Kizzie asked.
“Depends on how pis—er, how ticked off they are. Could be this was a one-time thing. Or it could be just the beginning.”
“I don’t know anyone who’d want to hurt this family,” Kizzie said. “What could any of us have done to someone to deserve this kind of payback?”
Luke’s gaze met Deanna’s and she knew instantly that he suspected the same people she did. But what would her family hope to accomplish by harming the McClendons?
Tyler caught the visual exchange between Luke and Deanna. He cleared his throat. “Do y’all think the Atchleys are involved?”
“After all these years, why...?” Kizzie gasped as realization dawned. “They’re scared Deanna’s going to remember the truth about who killed her daddy.”
“If that’s true
, then they must already know who killed Rayburn,” Tyler said.
“But how’s killing off our cattle going to keep Deanna from remembering?” Kizzie asked.
“I don’t know.” Tyler finished his tea, then set the glass back on the table. “Besides, we could be barking up the wrong tree. The Atchleys might not have a thing to do with the cattle being shot.”
“It could have been Andy Sales,” Luke said. “We got in a fight about a month ago and he threatened to make me sorry that I’d ever crossed him.”
“Andy Sales?” Tyler chuckled. “Bet you whipped his ass good, didn’t you, big brother. What was the fight about? Corrine Watkins?”
“Tyler, I won’t have that woman’s name mentioned at my dinner table.” Kizzie folded her arms belligerently across her chest.
“I don’t get in fights over women,” Luke said. “Andy claimed I cheated him when I played poker with him for those mustangs of his. He wouldn’t sell the horses, but said he’d play me for them.”
“Well, the man was a fool!” Tyler said. “Apparently, he didn’t know what Grant and I found out at an early age—never play cards with Luke.”
“Could be he decided to take revenge,” Luke said.
“Well, we aren’t going to settle this tonight.” The minute Kizzie stood, her sons rose from their seats. “Looks like we might have to wait and see. I’m tired out. We’ve had a big day, in more ways than one. Think I’m going to head on to bed.”
Tyler kissed his mother on the cheek, but Luke only nodded to Kizzie.
“One of you boys will see Deanna to the guest house, won’t you?” She looked directly at Luke. “She’s been a mite under the weather today and I don’t want her—”
“I’d be delighted to walk Deanna over to the cottage,” Tyler said.
“Thank you.” Deanna smiled weakly at Luke’s stepbrother. “But that’s not necessary. I’m perfectly all right. I can see myself home.”
“No way.” Tyler offered her his arm. “My mama wants you escorted and I’m your man. If you’re ready, we can take a stroll before I see you to the cottage.”
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