“When Joseph came to me on our wedding day and told me what I’d done…I knew he was right about one thing, Adam. You were going to hate me either way. So my choice then wasn’t whether or not to go through with our wedding. Because Joseph would have seen to it that you knew, and the wedding was never going to happen. My choice was whether to let you hate me for standing you up at the altar, or to let you hate me for robbing you of your parents.”
Gasping for enough air to fuel his words, he managed, “Exactly. That was your choice. And you made the wrong one.”
“Joseph helped me make the wrong one,” she said. “I’m not excusing what I did. But I had to act quickly, Adam, and I was totally in shock. Utterly devastated. Horrified at learning I’d not only killed two people, but that they were the parents of the man I loved. Learning only hours before what I had thought would be the happiest moment of my life that it was never going to happen.
“Joseph said that he knew about my father’s health. He said that if the truth about the accident ever came out, it would kill Daddy. Kill him. And he was right, Adam. Daddy was already bad enough that he needed in-home care, a nurse on call.”
“Oh, I know. I remember.” His voice was thin, harsh. “We planned for that, don’t you remember, Kirsten? Don’t you remember all those ridiculous dreams? We were going to buy the biggest ranch around and turn it into a resort. A dude ranch with mock cattle drives and camp-outs for the customers. We were going to have plenty of room for Max. He would have been in his glory playing cowboy in full costume. We were going to give him a role to play in our lives, in our business. Make him feel needed, keep him active and vital. Do you remember all that, Kirsten? All the nights we spent talking, making plans?’’
She nodded, looking almost too tired to hold her head up. “I remember everything.”
“You threw those plans away. Instead of playing cowboy, Max Armstrong is living out his days in a nursing home with a yard the size of a dog kennel without a horse or a Stetson in sight. All because his little girl didn’t want to confess that she was less than perfect to a father who idolized her. Isn’t that what it really comes down to, Kirsten?”
She lifted her head, met his eyes. “Is that what you really believe?”
He looked into Kirsten’s brown wounded eyes and shook his head. “I don’t really know what the hell I believe anymore.”
“Believe this,” she whispered. “This lie has been eating me up inside for a long time now. It’s been killing me to keep it from you. It had to come out, Adam, and no matter what happens from here on in, I’m glad it finally did. At least…at least you know the truth now,” she whispered.
Tears burned behind his eyes. But he knew they wouldn’t spill over. They never had. Never. His throat went so tight he could barely pull air through it. His lungs spasmed painfully. “What I don’t understand is how you could have kept something like this from me for as long as you have, Kirsten.”
“Joseph promised prison for me if I told. He promised to let my father know exactly where I was, even to fly him in for my trial. He swore Daddy wouldn’t last through the D.A.’s opening statement, and I knew he was right, Adam. I had no choice.”
He looked up, his eyes narrow. “You always had a choice. The choice was to trust me.”
Unable to argue with that, she looked away.
He made a sound of disgust in his throat, yanked up his hat and slammed it down on his head. He needed to escape. He needed to run. Now. “I’m out of here. You made this mess on your own, Kirsten—you can just get out of it the same way. I’ve given up enough for you. My family has given up enough for you. No more.” He was striking back, returning pain for pain, he knew that. It didn’t stop him from doing it anyway.
He headed for the barn door, lifted the crosspiece, shoved it open. Sunlight spilled blindingly onto his face, heated him through his clothes. He smelled grass, freshly cut. And grain and cattle. He stood still, some small part of him knowing he shouldn’t keep going. Some kernel of sanity telling him to slow down. To digest this shock and think it through and not just storm off this way. To pause and think first.
“It’s all right,” she said from behind him. “I knew you’d walk away once I told you the truth. I’ve been expecting it, Adam, and I don’t blame you. I deserve it. I deserve worse. I ought to go to prison for murder, and I know that. If it wasn’t for Daddy, I’d stand up like I ought to and face the music. But for his sake, I have to wait…. I have to let him go on believing in me…just for a little bit longer.”
“You do whatever you have to, Kirsten. I don’t give a damn anymore.”
Even as he said it, though, he knew it was a lie. But he stomped away, all the same. He left her alone. Walked off in a temper just the way he’d done two years before when she’d left him standing there in the chapel, alone. A groom without a bride. Looking and feeling like the biggest fool in Texas. Only it was different this time. Because this time his love for her went deeper. It went clear to his soul this time. And it hurt ten times more than it ever had before. He should have stayed the hell away from her. Kirsten had never been anything but trouble to him and his, and she never would be.
Chapter 11
Kirsten watched him leave. He walked for a time along the dusty, early-morning street of the tiny west Texas town. Then he ran. As if he couldn’t get away from her fast enough. When he rounded a corner and vanished from sight, she lowered her head and let the tears come. She’d known what to expect. She had always known he wouldn’t love her anymore once he knew the truth. She had been preparing herself for this very reaction from him for two years now. So why did it still come as such a shattering blow? Why the hell did it hurt so much? Was there truly some stupid, naive little girl inside her who had believed his reaction would be…could be…any different?
What had she expected? That Adam would take her into his arms and whisper that he forgave her? That he would tell her it wasn’t her fault, that he didn’t hate her for what she’d done?
That he still loved her?
“Grow up, little girl,” she whispered to herself. Angrily she backhanded hot tears from her eyes. “Okay. So it’s time. Time to figure out what the hell to do. Time to face the consequences of my actions, once and for all. God knows it’s long overdue.”
Pushing her hair into some semblance of control, wishing to God she had a makeup kit or a hairbrush nearby, she stepped back into the dimness of the barn and walked to the far end, where the horses stood contentedly munching hay. As if the whole world hadn’t just collapsed around them. As if everything was as fine and normal as it had been before.
She saddled them both and led them outside. She would return them to Wes…or see to it someone did. Soon. First things first, though. She had no time to grieve, no time to mourn. It was time to act. She had no reason to stay in Texas a moment longer. No reason at all. She would make just one stop before she made her way out of Quinn forever. One stop to nurture the small hope that maybe… just maybe…a clue had turned up somewhere. One that pointed to someone else having put that bullet between Joseph Cowan’s eyes.
She almost wished it had been her.
She mounted Mystic, the mare she’d been riding since she and Adam had left Sky Dancer Ranch with the borrowed pair, and led the other horse, Layla, along beside her. Riding around behind the barn to avoid Quinn’s main street, she kept watch but saw little activity. She took to a trail that ran behind most of the shops and businesses in town. She would be less visible that way. She didn’t have far to go. Madden Hawkins’ law office was in his home, and that was just a half mile away.
She didn’t know why the hell she was wasting her time, taking this chance. She should just run for it, now, before it was too late. But damn the still small voice inside her head—the one that kept whispering that she had to make sure.
Sure of what?
Sure that there was no hope. Sure that it was all over, that leaving was her only option.
And sure that Adam really mean
t what he’d said—that he wanted nothing more to do with her. Because if she hung around just a little while longer, gave him time to think it through, he might just change his mind.
And letting herself believe that was probably the most self-destructive thing she’d done yet, and that was saying something.
She drew the horses to a stop in the back yard of Madden Hawkins’ small house, took a wary look around and saw no one. In fact, it was so quiet and still, it was eerie. The curtains of the tiny house were drawn tight, and not a single light shone from within. But the tin-can strains of a radio made their way from somewhere inside the dim house.
She looped both mares’ reins around a low-hanging limb and walked closer. The back door stood at the top of a small set of steps. Beside them a bird feeder was mounted atop a pole. But no birds were hanging out there today. She didn’t even hear any singing.
She walked up the steps, pulled open the screen door, tapped on the wooden one. While she waited for an answer, she identified the song playing from inside. Not a radio. A record album, from the sounds of it. An old Hank Williams tune, skipping and playing the same broken, fragmented line over and over again.
Something twisted in Kirsten’s belly, and she knocked again. As she did, she sent a sideways glance toward the driveway at the side of the house. She could see the front fender of Madden’s car. So he was home, then. Maybe just not up yet.
Yeah. Maybe he’s sleeping through that incessantly skipping record.
She pounded harder on the door. “Madden?” she called. “Are you here?”
No answer. Swallowing what felt like a coating of sand on her throat, she tried the knob, and it gave. When she let it go, the door swung slowly open, and Kirsten stepped inside. One step, a glance to the left, a glance to the right…
Big mistake.
Madden Hawkins was hanging limply from a rope, just above the kitchen table. It was tied to the light fixture up there. On the floor behind him, the chair he’d used to help him kill himself lay toppled on its back. His face was mottled, mouth agape, tongue….
She turned away as the scream ripped from her chest and filled the entire house.
Running footsteps came from outside, up the back steps, and then a man was gripping her shoulders, looking past her, swearing softly.
Elliot Brand.
He tucked her head to his chest, anchoring her there with a solid arm around her shoulders, and he took her outside, away from the horror.
She didn’t know what the hell Adam’s brother was doing there…she was glad he was.
“It’s okay,” he was saying. “It’s okay.”
She couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t stop her teeth from chattering.
Elliot hugged her against him as he walked away from the house. He put her on one of the horses, climbed up behind her, put his arms around her waist.
“We…we can’t just leave him like that,” she whispered.
“I’ll call Garrett. But before I do that, I need to stash you someplace safe. Where the hell is Adam? What is he thinking letting you wander around town all alone, anyway?”
He looked down at her as he asked the question, nudging the horse into motion, wrapping the other one’s reins around the pommel.
“He…I…” She choked on her tears. “He’s gone. He hates me now.”
“Bull.”
“It’s not bull. You will, too, soon enough.”
“Now I know that’s bull. Where is he, hon?”
She swallowed hard. “Last I saw him, he was headed toward the Badlands, out where they almost meet the road off the north edge of town. He was…he was pretty upset. I hurt him, Elliot.”
“He’ll be all right.”
“I hope so.”
“He’s a Brand. He’ll be all right.” He kicked the horse into a canter and maneuvered them away from the main roads, cutting across back lawns and fields until they got to the other side of town.
“Here we are.” Elliot stopped the horse and helped her to the ground. They were looking back on Jessi Brand’s Veterinary Clinic and the neat cottage beside it. “Jess isn’t back yet,” Elliot explained. “You’ll be safe here until I take care of this whole mess.” He dug in his pocket for a key, ushered her inside his sister’s home and closed the door behind them. Then he snatched up the phone and punched numbers.
Kirsten looked around. The place was cozy. Earth tones and a lot of hardwood. A rocking chair with a ruffled cushion, where Jessi Brand probably spent happy hours rocking her little girl, while her loving husband looked on adoringly.
Envy twisted like a blade in her belly. She would never know that kind of normality or comfort…or love. The only things that surrounded her were ugly things. Death and fear and lies. She couldn’t believe that was ever likely to change.
“Garrett,” Elliot was saying into the receiver. “You’d better get out to Madden Hawkins’ place. He’s dead. Looks like a suicide.”
There was a loud response from the other end but Elliot interrupted. “No time now. Just get out there. I’ll talk to you later.” And Elliot hung up.
He turned to Kirsten, gripped her shoulders and eased her into a soft, overstuffed chair. “Now I have to go check on Adam. But I’ll be back soon. Are you gonna be all right?”
She nodded, but it was false. She didn’t feel all right. She felt dazed and disoriented and pretty well devastated to boot.
“Yeah, sure you are. You’re the furthest thing from all right. You just stay put, lady. Okay? You just curl up here….” He pushed her a little, gently, until she lay back in the chair. Then he pulled a blanket from the back of it and tucked it around her. “Just rest here until I get back, okay?”
She nodded.
Elliot stood there looking at her for a long moment. “That brother of mine is some kind of fool to have left you behind.”
“No,” she whispered. “No. Leaving me was the smartest thing he ever did.”
Adam kept walking, heading away from the barn where he’d taken her, where they’d spent the night. The place where that barn sat—the old Recknor ranch—was one of the places he and Kirsten had once thought of buying together. It was one of the places they’d talked about refurbishing, turning into their dude ranch. It was also the first place they had made love, that big, shadowy old barn.
And it was the place where it had all fallen apart, at long last. About two years overdue, that breakdown. But it had happened in the same place where they had first begun to learn from each other what love was.
Ironic.
He would never go back to that barn again. Never. He would never even drive by the Recknor place again, if he could help it. It ate at his pride to think he had been stupid enough to let some of those old dreams slip back into his mind, his heart. To think he had been gullible enough to hope, even for a minute, that they could come true after all.
He headed out toward the desert, walking faster with every step, then running. All-out, long, powerful strides. The wind swept his hat off and sent it tumbling through the dust behind him, but he didn’t give a damn. He ran until the hot Texas sun sizzled on his skin and the sweat ran into his eyes and stung and burned. The pain was good. He ran until his legs screamed and his muscles ached and his head swam and his lungs begged. And then he ran some more. He wanted the pain. He wanted the exhaustion. Anything to drown out the sound of his heart breaking. Anything to squelch the memories.
But nothing would end those memories, would it? He could see it all again. That sunny day at the cemetery, staring in grim silence at the two shiny hardwood boxes, all strewn with flowers, suspended over empty, open graves. Oh, the pits were hidden from view by the pretty cloths draped over them. But a kid of fourteen knew well enough what was underneath. A kid of fourteen knew what was inside. A kid knew that all the flowers and pretty words were bull, and that death was the ugliest thing there was.
And he knew he never wanted to hurt like that again. And he wouldn’t. He was determined that he wouldn’t.
He’d stood, holding his little brother’s hand. Elliot had been crying real soft. For days he’d been crying. His nose and eyes were raw from the sting of bitter tears. And it wasn’t fair, dammit. It wasn’t fair that his little brother had to suffer that way…that any of them had to suffer that way.
Adam ran as the memories spun around in his mind, and he felt the pain and the rage boiling up inside him in a way they never had. He stopped running only when his strength gave out. His body gave up. He fell facedown on the parched, splitting ground and tasted baked dirt on his lips.
And then the storm hit him. A storm he’d never felt, even in the height of his rage. His hands clenched, fingers digging into the sunbaked earth. Teeth bared, eyes tight and burning, he whispered, “Sweet heaven, why? Why the hell did it have to be them? Why did they leave us all alone like that? What right did they have to put a bunch of kids through that kind of heartbreak?”
The tears came…years and years worth of them. The tears of a child mourning the deaths of his mama and his daddy. A child unable to express his grief or his sadness by any means other than rage and anger. The grief, so long held captive, was finally given release.
He sobbed. He had never cried this way in his life. Hell, he hadn’t shed a tear since that horrible, black day when his world had fallen apart. Not one tear had fallen. Not one.
But he shed them now.
Why?
Why? The question kept coming back, over and over. Why now? Eventually the storm subsided, but the question remained. It begged his exploration. It demanded his attention. And as he lay there, limp in the aftermath of that emotional onslaught, his mind cleared a bit, and he realized the answer was simple.
He had never loved anyone the way he had loved his parents…not until now. He’d thought he had, but he hadn’t, not really. And he had never lost someone who meant as much to him as they had. Not until now.
The storm might have abated, but the pain remained. God, it hurt. He had sworn never to hurt this way again. Yet here it was, swamping him, taking away coherent thought, paralyzing in its power. He wanted to curl into a ball or crawl into a black hole and never emerge. He wanted to drown in the pain until it ended.
Lone Star Lonely Page 14
