by Tami Hoag
“What was it?”
Del swallowed hard and rubbed his scar with his fingertips. He couldn't say he'd thought he'd seen a tiger. Tigers didn't come out in the daylight. He shook his head and winced at the ache of his brain sloshing against the sides of his skull. No, dammit, J.D. didn't know about the tigers. He couldn't talk about the tigers—same way he couldn't talk about the blondes dancing in the moonlight.
“Del?”
“Cat,” he said. “Don't want cougars around with the cattle coming up.”
“Mmm. Well, we'll be a little late bringing the herd,” J.D. said, falling into step beside his uncle. Del's three dogs stood, hopeful of an invitation, in front of the cabin door. Their master growled at them and swung a hand, sending the trio scrambling away with their tails between their legs. “A week, maybe.”
Del didn't ask why. He was glad though. He didn't want the cattle up here now. He wanted the blondes gone first. The women and their familiars. He wished he could decide what to do about them. He wished he had the courage to do something, the sense to know what was right.
The rattlesnake raised its head and hissed at them. Del didn't spare it a glance. He went into the cabin, to a shelf in the kitchen, and pulled out two cans of Dr Pepper. J.D. eased down on one of the chairs at the table and sipped on his while Del paced the room like a caged animal, rubbing his scar. The cabin was neat as a pin, as clean as every single rifle on the gun racks. The smell of Shooter's Choice bore solvent served as an air freshener.
“You didn't happen to be down on the Little Snake over by the Boxed Circle yesterday, did you?” J.D. asked casually.
Del jumped as if he'd been hit with a switch. “No . . . no . . .” he mumbled, his eyes on his rifles at the end of the room. “No.” He stopped suddenly and stared hard at J.D., the gray of his eyes seeming to glow like polished pewter in the filtered light that came through muslin at the windows. “You didn't bring that blond woman, did you?”
J.D. bit back a sigh. “No.”
“I don't want her here. She's trouble.” He shook a finger at his nephew. “You mind my words, J.D.”
J.D. wasn't sure whether Del meant Lucy or Mary Lee. He wasn't sure Del knew the difference. He told himself he should have listened sooner in either case. “Never mind about her, Del. You leave her be, you hear? I can handle her. There's no need for you to concern yourself.”
“Don't you trust her,” Del growled. “I don't trust none of them blondes. They're all trouble.”
“Well, that's a fact,” J.D. mumbled to himself. He took another sip of Dr Pepper and braced himself for the rest of the conversation. “I found Miller Daggrepont dead in the Little Snake yesterday. Guess he had a heart attack. Thought you might have seen him out there fishing.”
He sipped on the warm Dr Pepper absently, his gaze trained on his uncle's face, looking for any sign of recognition . . . or guilt. His own guilt ate away at him, bubbling in with the warm pop to gnaw at his stomach lining.
“Did you see anything, Del?”
I saw a tiger on the mountain. I saw the corpses dance in the moonlight. Crazy things. Del felt his throat trying to close up, like one of the ghosts had hold of his windpipe. He tried to gulp a swig of Dr Pepper. Half of it ran out the dead side of his mouth and spilled onto his shirt.
“I—I saw a cat, that's all,” he mumbled, wiping the stain with his handkerchief. “Don't want cats up here with the cattle coming.”
He thought he might have already said that, but he couldn't be sure. Beneath the plate his brain was buzzing like a swarm of mosquitoes. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept more than two hours. He couldn't remember sleeping without the dark dreams. It was important for him to stay awake now, he told himself. He had to help guard the ranch. He had to make sure the blondes didn't steal it, or the city idiots, or the men who ruled the dog-boys.
J.D. drew a long breath in through his teeth. “Del, I have to ask you if you saw anything back when that woman was shot.” He searched painfully for the most diplomatic words he could find. Del had his problems, but he had his pride too. “Is there anything about that deal you might want to tell me?”
Del stared hard at his guns, his broken mouth opening and closing like a fish's. His eyes gleamed with unshed tears and the dark light of a thousand nightmares. J.D. felt as if something inside his chest were being crushed. Loyalties and obligations pressed against one another and pushed and pushed. The pressure weighed on him like lead as he stood and crossed the room.
“Del? Do you have something to say about that?”
“No,” he murmured, staring at the rifles and shotguns with their oiled barrels and polished stocks. “You don't want cats on the mountain when the cattle come up.”
J.D. rubbed his eyes. He knew he should have pressed. He knew he should have asked Del outright if he'd had anything to do with Lucy's death. But, God help him, he couldn't bring himself to do it. He got burned either way. Quinn took his word that Del hadn't done more than find the body. If he lied to the sheriff, his integrity suffered. If he turned Del over, he didn't think he'd ever be able to live with himself.
And if your uncle is a killer?
No win. The answer slipped through the loop. Hang up your rope and call it a day, cowboy. Catch one tomorrow.
“Where'd you see that cat?” he asked softly. “Maybe I'll have a look-see on my way home.”
CHAPTER
24
HUMILIATED and hurt, Samantha spent the remainder of the day in the guest room Bryce had allocated her. He checked on her within moments of the scene on the terrace, but she refused to let him in the room. He talked to her through the bedroom door, telling her everything would be all right, that she shouldn't shut him out. But she kept her face buried in the pillow and eventually he went away.
She cried until she thought she would be sick from it, them, exhausted, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. When she woke up, the sun had slipped behind the mountains and the room was dim with shadows.
Disoriented and groggy, she sat up and looked at her surroundings. For a moment she thought she was dreaming, that she had only to shake herself and she would be on her own lumpy mattress in the little house she shared with Will.
Will.
She closed her eyes as it all came rushing back. Every bit of it. Her crumbling marriage. Will stumbling drunk on Bryce's terrace. The way he had punched Bryce. The ugly things he'd said to her and about her.
Take my wife . . . Hell, I never wanted one in the first place!
Samantha's eyes burned and her throat closed, but no tears came. She had cried them all. More miserable than she'd ever been in her life, she leaned back against the headboard of the elegant bed and looked down at herself. The elegant copper silk outfit she had put on before Will's arrival was a roadmap of wrinkles and creases. It looked terrible and she felt that somehow the fabric had undergone some kind of chemical reaction from contact with her skin, as if something so fine had been designed to sort the worthy from the worthless.
Poor, stupid kid. Thought you could pretend different, didn't you? Stupid dreamer. Grow up, Samantha. Grow up and see what you really are.
Trembling at the self-castigation, she got up from the bed and went to look at herself in the huge beveled mirror above the bleached pine bureau. The reflection wasn't pretty. Not even the dim lighting could hide the effects of her earlier crying jag. The makeup she had applied so carefully had run and streaked on her puffy face. Her hair hung limp and disheveled. She'd lost an earring somewhere.
She looked pathetic. She felt pathetic.
No wonder Will didn't want her. She wasn't worth wanting. She was naive and foolish. Bryce's friends were probably downstairs laughing at her. Poor little dim-witted tomboy barmaid, pretending she could fit in with the rich and beautiful people.
Her breath coming in broken, disjointed spasms, she turned away from the mirror. She felt hollow inside, aching and hollow, as if everything in her had been yanked out and discarded. Her should
ers pulled forward and she curled in on herself as she moved, walking like an old woman. She felt as ugly and freakish as a giant praying mantis, and as fragile; as if someone could grab her and snap her in two, just crunch up her long bones and toss them aside.
She moved to stand by the window that looked down on the pool and pressed her forehead against the glass. The underwater lights had been turned on, but there was no sign of any of Bryce's guests. She wondered if they were gathered downstairs, wondered if she could somehow slip past them and leave the house without being seen.
She didn't belong here. She didn't feel as if she belonged anywhere, but she knew she didn't belong here. Bryce wouldn't want her here anyway, not after what Will had done. And she couldn't bear the thought of facing the rest of them—Ben Lucas and Uma Kimball and Sharon. Especially Sharon. Just the thought of Sharon's possible comments regarding the afternoon were enough to make her feel ill.
No. Cinderella's time at the ball was up.
Dry sobs croaked in her throat as she took off the clothes Bryce had bought for her and hung them in the wardrobe. She removed the remaining earring and the necklace and bracelets, then went into the bathroom and scrubbed off the makeup and the lingering traces of perfume. She plaited her hair in its serviceable braid and secured the end with a rubber band from her purse. She pulled on her old jeans, but stopped short of putting on the white oxford shirt.
It belonged to Will. She rubbed the soft, worn collar between her fingertips, bunched the fabric in her hands, and brought it up to her face. She imagined she could still smell his scent on it, could still feel the warmth of his body in the fibers. But she knew she couldn't. Will was gone from her life. The shirt may have belonged to him, but she didn't belong to him anymore. He didn't want her. Had never wanted her.
Her heart breaking, she folded the shirt and put it in a dresser drawer, trading it for a white silk T-shirt—the plainest thing she could take.
She straightened the bed covers and tidied the bath, wanting to leave as few traces of her existence as possible. She would just slip out of the house and out of the lives of the people in the house and go back to what was left of her own life. A shabby house and a rusty car and a puppy.
She would have to borrow a car. Or maybe she could hitch a ride with one of the hands—
“Samantha?” Bryce's voice sounded outside the door to the sitting area of the suite.
She froze in her tracks on her way to the door, her heart bumping up against the base of her throat. She didn't want to see him, didn't think she could face him. Maybe if she didn't answer him again—
“Samantha, I know you're awake. I heard you moving around. Open the door, sweetheart. I've brought you some dinner. We'll talk.”
“I—I don't know what to say,” she mumbled.
“You don't have to say anything,” he said gently. “You can just eat and I'll talk for both of us. How's that?”
Too kind, she thought, biting her lip.
“Samantha?”
“All right.”
Dreading the moment, she opened the door. Bryce stood with a tray in his hands. The only visible signs of his fight with Will were a bruise and cut on his chin and raw spots on the knuckles of his right hand. His lower lip was split and puffy. He took in her attire in one long, speculative look and hummed a little.
“I thought I would just go,” she admitted, turning the lamp on the dresser to low. Just enough light so Bryce could see what he was doing, not enough to spotlight her raw eyes and puffy face.
He set the tray down on the small round table near the window and busied his hands, uncovering the plate and pouring two glasses from a bottle of chardonnay. He had anticipated this reaction. The humiliation would be far too heavy for Samantha's fragile ego to bear. Rafferty would have to pay for this. Long and painfully. He had held a perfect wild rose in his grasp and crushed her with his carelessness. He deserved to be ruined.
“Why do you think you should do that, honey?” he asked gently.
Samantha stared at him with a weird feeling of having just awakened from a dream. His tone of voice was calm and unaffected, as if nothing at all had happened. “Well . . . with what happened this afternoon and all . . . I just thought . . .”
He turned to her and gave her his warmest, most understanding smile. Fatherly, he thought. Kind. “That wasn't your fault.”
“Will is my husband—”
“Will is a fool. He didn't have any right to come here. He didn't have any right to say those things to you.”
Samantha swallowed the knot of guilt in her throat. “I'm his wife.”
“He doesn't deserve you.” He tilted his head as he came toward her, reading the emotions in her clear, dark eyes as easily as he would a grade-school primer. Gently he tugged her fingers out of the pockets of her jeans and curled his bony hands around them. “He doesn't own you.”
He doesn't want you.
She couldn't be a wife to a man who refused to be a husband. She wasn't a wife. She didn't have anyone. She didn't have anything.
A fresh wave of tears filled her eyes, and her mouth began to tremble.
Bryce smiled to himself as he drew her against him and wrapped his arms around her. “He doesn't deserve your tears, Samantha. He had a diamond and he threw it away. That's his loss, not yours.”
She pressed her face down on his shoulder and sobbed as if the world were going to end. He supposed her world was ending, shattering like a cheap Christmas ornament. Like an egg breaking to allow her to emerge into a newer, larger, better world. His world. He liked the analogy. She was a beautiful baby bird in the lush paradise that was his world. And he would guide her and flaunt her. She would be more, have more, than she had ever dreamed. And she would be his.
“I—I'm s-sorry,” Samantha stammered, trying to draw back from him. She had been raised not to cry in front of people. This was just another humiliation—crying on Evan Bryce for the second time in the scant few days she'd known him. “I n-never d-do this,” she said by way of apology. “I—I n-never cry on p-people.”
Bryce let her move back just enough so he could reach up between them and brush the tears from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. The gentle smile curved his wide mouth again and he held her eyes with his. “I'm honored, then,” he murmured. “You feel comfortable with me. You trust me. That means a lot to me—to be your friend. I want only the best for you, Samantha.”
She looked into his bright eyes, eyes shining with kind lights, and felt something like desperation claw inside her. She was nothing, she had nothing. He wanted the best for her. He liked her. He thought of her as his friend.
“I need a friend,” she whispered.
“I'm here.” He drew her slowly into his arms again and held her close, stroking a hand over her hair. His other hand rubbed up and down her back in a hypnotic rhythm. “I'm here,” he whispered, his lips brushing her ear. “I'll be anything you need.”
She slipped her arms around him and he rocked her in a lazy, languid slow dance, pressing her closer still. Outside, the world had faded away to black. Time took on a dreamlike quality, surreal and dim. Samantha let herself float on it. She anchored herself to her only friend and let her mind drift in the mist.
She didn't have anyone, anything in the world, except this kind man who held her.
His lips pressed against her temple, grazed her ear.
I'll be anything you need, Samantha. . . .
I'll give you anything. . . .
I love you. . . .
She soaked in the whispered words like a dry sponge. She wondered if he'd even said them or if she had only wanted so badly to hear them from someone, anyone at all. She might have been dreaming. She'd thought so before.
“I love you,” he whispered, and kissed her cheek and the corner of her mouth. His erection poked against her belly, and she felt her body quicken and twitch in response.
“We can't,” she whispered, but she made no move to pull away. Drifting, drifting still on the
fog, in the dream.
“Yes,” he murmured. “I love you, Samantha. Let me show you what that's like.”
“But I—”
“Shhh . . . Let me love the pain away.”
She thought she should stop him, but his hands were inside her blouse and tracing mesmerizing patterns on her back and sides, and it felt so good. Then he was cupping her breast and the air in her lungs thinned.
It had been so long. She had been so lonely.
This is just a dream. . . .
He lowered her to the bed and followed her down. The spread was cool against her bare skin. He had loosened her hair and it spilled like silk around her. His mouth fastened on her nipple and need tore through her. The need to be loved, to be touched.
His fingers slid into the tangle of dark curls between her legs and she opened to him. He was kind and gentle. He wanted her. Will didn't. She looked up into his strange light eyes as he poised over her.
“Do you really love me?” she murmured.
Bryce held himself motionless. Energy pulsed down through his body. He felt supercharged, electrified, on the brink of a new greatness. New power.
“Yes,” he answered, knowing it was as true as it ever had been in his life.
“You fucked her, didn't you?” Sharon spat out the accusation, deliberately choosing the harshest, ugliest word she could to describe what she knew had happened.
Bryce didn't dignify her charge with a response. He stood before the big windows in the elegant living room, looking out at the night. In fact, he was barely paying attention to his cousin. He felt huge, as if power had enlarged his entire body in order to contain the humming energy that coursed through him. His brain was racing with ideas and plans. In the all-important center of his thoughts, Sharon had already been dismissed.
She didn't take to the idea with grace. She moved across the dark room like a stalking tigress. She wore her hair slicked straight back from her face, secured in a chignon, a style that only emphasized the harshness of her features. In the tarnished light from the display cases, her eyes glowed with anger.
