Lone Star Knight

by Cindy Gerard

  “She knows nothing,” Milo Yungst said into his cell phone as he and Garth Johannes followed the black Lexus cutting a zigzag path through Royal.

  “I grow weary of hearing those words,” an enraged Albert Payune snapped, the anger in his voice booming across the transcontinental connection. “And I grow weary of your inept handling of this entire situation. You must get both Lady Helena Reichard and Jamie Morris alone where they are not surrounded by their protectors. And do not tell me one more time that you cannot find Lady Helena! Find her. These men—these Cattleman’s Club men—they are mere businessmen. How can they continue to out-smart you—you who were hand picked to aid the cause?”

  “We will find her, sir.”

  “Yes. You will find her. And you will find out what she knows about the jewels. I’ll expect a report in the morning.”

  The line went dead. Yungst, cold eyes dead ahead, pocketed the phone. “Follow that car,” he ordered Johannes in a thick voice. “We must not fail. We must not.”

  She would miss this land, Helena thought as she stood on the terrace at High Stakes watching a sunset that was so magnificent it brought tears to her eyes. Bleeding shades of the richest red, the most vibrant fuchsia, the most stunning violet, arrested the horizon in shimmering banks of clouds rimmed in gold.

  “There is nothing of beauty that compares to this,” she whispered as she leaned back against Matthew’s chest, relishing his solid strength even as she began missing the shelter of his arms, the electric heat of his loving.

  “I disagree.” He turned her in his arms. His eyes searched her face, as if memorizing every detail. “If I was a poet, I’d tell you in verse that your beauty rivals any sunset Texas or I have ever seen.”

  She smiled into his eyes, her heart breaking for all that she would lose when she left him. “You are a lovely man, Matthew Walker.”

  “And you were incredible today. You were very brave.”

  “Well,” she rested her hands on his shoulders, “it was time, don’t you think? I’ve been hiding out here long enough.”

  “Hiding? No. Try recovering.”

  He was being kind when they both knew that hiding out was exactly what she’d been doing.

  “I can never thank you for what you’ve given me. No,” she interrupted with the press of her finger to his lips when he would have corrected her. “I need to say this. I have healed here, Matthew. You played no small part in that. You offered me shelter, you offered me sanctuary. You offered me Jewell,” she said, and felt tears misting her eyes.

  “It was a setup from the beginning, wasn’t it? You knew I needed her as much as she needed me.”

  “It was a risk,” he said. “I was worried that I might have done the wrong thing.”

  She leaned into him, hugged him hard when his arms banded around her. “No one has ever risked that much for me.”

  The kiss he pressed to the top of her head warmed places in her heart that had been cold for as long as she remembered.

  “You looked wonderful on her today.”

  “Oh, and it felt wonderful,” she said, thinking back to the afternoon. Her heart had been in her throat, her palms damp with perspiration as she’d gathered the reins and with assistance from Matthew, mounted the little mare. They’d made two slow but victorious trips around the arena, Jewell favoring her leg but bravely carrying both her weight and Helena’s.

  “It still feels wonderful,” she added, pulling back to touch a hand to his face, “so wonderful to discover that I not only want, but I need to get my life back on course. I have so many projects that have been placed on hold. And so many new ones I want to initiate,” she added, thinking of the burn victims who had suffered so much more than she had.

  He smiled at her, a bit sadly, she thought, then leaned down to kiss her, long and sweet and slow. “Dance with me,” he said, still looking into her eyes.

  “I…” she stopped herself, realizing that she’d been about to say, I can’t. She smiled instead. “I’d love to.”

  And there, as the sun set mellow and slow, as the twilight breeze transitioned to a warm caress and the day gave way to the most gentle of nights, she danced, as she’d never thought she would dance again. In the circle of her tall green-eyed Texan’s arms, she felt invincible. In the warmth of his embrace she felt loved.

  But not enough.

  She laid her head against his shoulder. He did love her. She was sure of it. But loving her and wanting to love her were two different things. Matthew did not want to love her. She might never know what held him back, but she would always know the pain his resistance fostered. And if she were to truly get on with her life, she had to leave him. Soon. While she still had the strength to walk away.

  Ten

  Frank’s voice boomed over the intercom, waking Matt at sunrise with a clipped, “Get down here, we’ve got trouble.”

  He left Helena sleeping and tore down to the kitchen. He was still zipping and tucking and carrying his boots when he found Frank making coffee.

  “What?” he asked flatly.

  “We got us a varmint slinking around. The two-legged kind.”

  Matt dropped his boots and tugged them on. “Where?” he demanded and headed for the door.

  “Just cool your jets. He’s gone.” Frank leaned back against the counter, crossed his arms over his chest and yawned. “Didn’t know what woke me, but I figure now it must have been him.”

  “Him? You got a look at him?”

  “Tall. Fence-pole thin. Bushy hair.”

  “Yungst.” Matt swore under his breath.

  “You know him?”

  “Yeah. I know him. Tell me what happened.”

  “Well, he was sort of prowling around the barns when I spotted him. Looked to me like he was heading for the big house. That’s when I decided to get ol’ Bess here locked and loaded.” He nodded toward the sixteen-gauge shotgun propped in the corner by the door.

  “Well, he got one look at me and lit out like a road-runner with his tail feathers on fire. And no, I didn’t get a look at his face or the horsepower he rode out on. Musta had someone waiting behind the wheel, motor revved and ready.”

  “You’re sure he’s gone?”

  Frank snorted. “Oh yeah. They left a trail of dust as wild as a whirlwind.”

  Matt settled himself down then met Frank’s eye. “I want a man stationed at every door, all three houses. Get Buck and Homer to stand at the front entrance—Les and Gary at South Trail. Anyone comes in, I want to know about it.”

  Frank squinted at him, his expression grim. “You s’pose it might be time you filled me in on what the heck’s goin’ on around here?”

  “Yes, Matthew.”

  He spun around to see Helena, sleep-tousled and wrapped in his blue robe, standing uncertainly in the doorway.

  “I think it’s time you filled us all in.”

  Helena was steady but still stunned by the time Matt had told the three of them—Lois had joined them over coffee—about the jewel theft, the murder, the suspicions about a planned hostile takeover of Asterland and finally, the Cattleman’s Club members’ suspicions that Helena and Jamie were in danger. She was so quiet he was worried about her after Frank and Lois left.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking.” He faced her across the table, a mug of cooling coffee clutched between his palms.

  “I don’t know what to think.” She met his eyes, then glanced away. “Missing jewels, a murder.” She shook her head. “You…you were watching over me from the beginning?”

  He nodded and could see the thoughts racing through her mind.

  “And you think…you honestly think there is the possibility of an attempted overthrow of my government?” She shuddered, then met his eyes again, hers startlingly bright as she rose to her feet. “King Bertram. We must warn him. We must—”

  “Helena,” Matt stopped her with a look. “Please. Sit down.”

  Reluctantly she sat. He could see her pulse racing at her throat. “We’re
on top of it. Justin, Aaron, Ben and Dakota. We’ve been on this since the beginning. I can’t have you contacting King Bertram. It might tip our hand. Those who need to know have all been apprised of the situation.”

  She forced herself to settle. Drew a deep breath. “Payune,” she said abruptly. “Albert Payune is behind this. I know it. He and his minions—” Her eyes grew wide, her hand flew to her throat. “Oh, my God. That man. The tall one.”

  “Yungst,” Matthew prompted, all of his senses on red alert.

  “Yes. No.” She pressed her fingers to her temple. “His name is wrong. I…I can’t recall it but it is not Yungst. I know now why he seemed so familiar to me. He’s changed his hair, lost some weight, but he was once a royal bodyguard. He went underground when it was discovered that he was an anarchist leader. Matthew—we must stop him. He is a wanted man in my country.”

  Matt rose, squeezed her hand in reassurance and reached for the phone. He punched in a number and waited, his jaw bunched with impatience.

  “Lewis,” he said when a groggy Dakota picked up on the seventh ring. “We’ve got a big bingo here.”

  He filled Dakota in on what had happened and the fact that Helena had ID’d Yungst.

  “Yeah. Yeah,” he repeated, agreeing with Dakota’s conclusion that they needed to alert the authorities and have both Johannes and Yungst—or whoever he was—picked up. “Call the others would you, and fill them in? Call Ben first. These guys are getting desperate. He may need to tighten his security on Jamie.”

  He hated the look in Helena’s eyes as he hung up the phone. He hated even more that he could do very little to alleviate it.

  “Jamie. Jamie may be in danger, too?”

  “Jamie will be fine,” he assured her. “Ben has that situation well in hand.”

  He, however, had completely lost control of his situation, he realized as he watched her. The blue eyes that regarded him did so with a growing sense of hurt.

  “I could have told you,” he said, reading her thoughts and preempting the accusation that was sure to come. “I chose not to.

  “You were still recovering, Helena,” he pointed out when she looked away, pride and betrayal drifting like a shadow across her expressive face. “You had enough to deal with.”

  “Of course,” she said bitterly, “weak, insipid soul that I am, I could not have been expected to survive such dreadful goings-on.”

  He frowned. “That’s not what I thought.”

  She rose, pinned him with a look where he sat. “And that is our dilemma then, isn’t it, Matthew? I don’t know what you think. I don’t know what you feel.”

  Her anger was swift and surprising. She’d never pressed him about his feelings for her. On some level, he’d wished she would. On another, he’d been relieved that she hadn’t. He didn’t want to hurt her. But he couldn’t give her what he suspected she wanted. He couldn’t give her what she deserved.

  “And you, you know everything there is to know about me,” she added, her eyes hurting as she stared at him.

  He swallowed, but said nothing.

  “Everything but this. I love you.”

  He closed his eyes. Slowly shook his head. Let the words roll over him, around him, seep into his blood and burrow deep.

  He didn’t know what to say. He’d known. He’d known that she had fallen in love with him. Just as he’d known that circumstance had dictated the conditions of that love. She was dependent upon him. She felt indebted to him. But she had a life that she needed to live without him.

  “Helena. This…this has all been very hard for you. I care deeply for you. I know you care for me. But you don’t love me.”

  “Don’t.” Her eyes were hard, her chin high. “Do not dare to presume to tell me what I feel. You are the one man, Matthew, the one man I have ever loved.”

  She swallowed hard and held his gaze. “I have waited. I have waited a long time. I have waited, and I have wondered how love feels. So don’t tell me that I don’t love you. I do. I know how it feels.

  “I think you know, too,” she said after a long moment. “But I think, perhaps, that I am not the only one who has been afraid to face certain truths.”

  He just stood there, feeling her hurt, knowing, perhaps that what she said was true. Not knowing how he felt about it.

  “You will miss me, Matthew Walker,” she said sadly before she turned away from him. “You will miss me when I’m gone.”

  He watched her walk out of the room. And he told himself it didn’t carve a crater-size hole in his chest. Told himself it was a righteous decision to let her go. That it was best for her. Best for him.

  And yet all he could do right then was stand there, stare at the empty space where she had been—and wonder at another emptiness. The one that left an ache so hollow and so huge, he felt it like an open wound.

  Matt wasn’t sure what compelled him to follow her a few minutes later. He wasn’t even sure what he was going to say, but when he reached her bedroom and saw an open suitcase on her bed, he had to dig deep to find a steady breath.

  “You’re packing.”

  He stood in the doorway of her bedroom, watched her stiffen, draw a bracing breath, then toss another item in the suitcase.

  “I’ll be moving to the Royalton this morning. I’ve already called for a car to come and pick me up.”

  With deliberately slow steps, he walked farther into the room, telling himself the panic he felt had to do with her safety, not the cutting fact that she was leaving. Now. This minute.

  “Helena. This isn’t necessary. It isn’t even wise. At least wait until we’re sure the authorities have picked up Yungst and Johannes and begun the extradition process.”

  She straightened, finally turned to face him. Her eyes were dry, her soft features set with purpose. “You’ve done your duty, Matthew. You’ve been the perfect host. The perfect protector. The perfect lover.” Her voice broke slightly before she recovered. “But it’s time for me to go.”

  She was serious. She was leaving.

  She was leaving. The words bounced around in his head like a battering ram. But the pain, the pain he felt a little lower.

  She was leaving, and he knew, without a doubt, that long after she was gone, her memory would cling to him like a shadow. Haunt him like a ghost.

  Suddenly, he just couldn’t let it go at that. Suddenly he realized that if she left him, he would lose something vital, something more precious than pride, something worth fighting for. Even if the cost was her happiness.

  “Don’t go.”

  She stilled, her slight shoulders stiffening.

  “Don’t. Go,” he repeated, his voice sounding rusty.

  Very slowly, she turned, searched his face, not at all sure of what she saw there. “Convince me,” she said with quiet and regal authority. “Convince me that I should stay.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face, looked away from those beautiful blue eyes that he knew he would see for the rest of his life, whether she was a part of it or not.

  Convince her, she’d said. Hell. What she needed to know wouldn’t convince her of anything except the wisdom of leaving. But didn’t he owe her at least that much? Didn’t he owe her an explanation?

  “I was married once,” he said and waited as if expecting the roof to cave in. She merely stood there. Waiting.

  “Jena…Jena had been the queen of the Dallas social strata. She was used to glitz, lived and breathed glamour. And she needed exposure to what she had always referred to as the finer things in life—charity balls, society galas. High Stakes was too far off the beaten path to keep her firmly affixed in the spotlight that her life revolved around.

  “We were fresh out of college when I brought her here,” he went on, walking to the window and bracing his hand on the sill. “It was probably the biggest mistake I’d ever made.”

  She was sitting on the bed now, a sweater she’d been packing forgotten in her hand when he turned back to her.

  “I thought she would a
djust. And at first, it looked like she might. She’d been dazzled by the romantic image of marrying a rancher—then was devastated when the reality of ranch life didn’t match the fantasy she’d woven in her mind. She quickly lost her taste for the open range, the dust storms, the solitude.”

  He shook his head, searching even now, after all these years, for answers that still eluded him. “Even the Cattleman’s Club events couldn’t make up for the lack of gala functions that were so necessary to her existence.”

  He cupped a hand to his nape, rolled his shoulders. “I watched a beautiful and vivacious young woman turn into a demanding and insatiable shrew. She hated the ranch. She hated West Texas. And before it was over, she hated me.

  “For a long time, I alternated between feeling like I’d failed her and damning her for her inability to adapt. By the time she left me, less than a year into our marriage, I wasn’t even sure I still loved her—or if I ever had.”

  “And now?” she asked softly.

  “And now I’ve pretty much grown to accept that whatever the two of us shared that led us to the altar had been fueled more by hormones and bad judgment than by any true bond.”

  Softer still. “Where is she now?”

  He sucked in a breath. Let it out. “Dead. Six years ago. She was in the Gulf aboard one of our illustrious senator’s yachts. There was a party. With Jena, there was always a party,” he added with more fatigue than bitterness. “She fell overboard.”

  “How…how horrible.”

  He met her eyes levelly, feeling little more than a sad apathy for the young life that had been wasted. “I couldn’t make her happy, Helena. I could have tried harder. I could have…I don’t know, bent a little. Maybe it wouldn’t have ended that way.”

  She was quiet for a long time before asking, “Is that how you see it ending for us, Matthew?”

  He met her eyes, begged her to understand. “I can’t change who I am. I couldn’t give up High Stakes for her. I can’t give it up for you. It’s my home. It’s in my blood, and to leave it—even for the sake of my marriage—it can never be an option.”