The Texan

by Joan Johnston

  “Yeah,” Owen said. “Clay took it pretty hard.”

  “And Ridgeway? It must have been awful losing his only daughter like that.”

  “He looked pretty stoic at the funeral,” Owen said. “But Clay said he was a mess for a while.”

  Owen slid an arm around her shoulders, and she nestled her head against his chest as though it were the most natural thing in the world. As though they’d been a couple forever and always spent cold evenings cozied up together on the couch in front of a crackling fire. “Owen…”

  “What is it, Red?”

  “Nothing,” she said. Then, “This is nice.”

  “Yeah. It is.”

  She looked up. He looked down. Their eyes met and held. He leaned slowly toward her, giving her plenty of time to object. But she wanted that kiss. Needed it.

  His mouth was utterly soft, yearning. He touched her lips briefly, then looked into her eyes again. “I think I’m in love with you.”

  Bay leaned back abruptly. “What?” She felt the pressure of Owen’s hand at her shoulder, keeping her from bolting.

  “I’m in love with you,” he repeated.

  “You can’t be,” she said.

  He laughed softly. “You wouldn’t think so, would you? I mean, I’ve known you, what, two weeks maybe? You must admit, though, I’ve had a pretty good look at who you are. We’ve been through experiences together that most couples never encounter. I’ve liked what I’ve seen, Red. You were right about being reliable in a crunch. And you’re smart and sexy and—”

  “Whoa. Whoa,” Bay said, putting a hand over his mouth. “Where is all this coming from? Have you forgotten who you are? Who I am?”

  He gently took her hand away from his mouth and kissed her palm, causing shivers to run up her arm. “I know exactly who you are. The woman I love.”

  “How am I supposed to respond to that?” she said, feeling a spurt of panic.

  He lifted a brow. “I know what I’d like you to say.”

  “That I love you, too?” Bay’s heart was pounding. She was finding it hard to catch her breath.

  “I’d prefer you made it a statement, rather than a question,” he teased gently.

  She didn’t move when he leaned over to kiss her, but her heart squeezed at the tenderness of the gesture. She was used to men saying they loved her to get her into bed. It was a conventional male ploy. But Owen wasn’t aroused. His eyes gleamed with some emotion she refused to admit might be love. She felt desire curl tightly inside her until she ached with wanting him. Needing him.

  “Be practical,” she said in a quiet voice. “You’re feeling what you’re feeling precisely because we’ve been isolated together under some pretty unusual circumstances, and I’ve been the only female around.”

  “I think I fell in love with you at your father’s funeral,” he said. “When you left Sam sitting there in his wheelchair and walked over and challenged me to find the man who murdered your father.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Bay said. But she was remembering how it had felt to look into Owen’s eyes that day, how she’d been so afraid of what she’d seen and felt.

  He slid a finger under her chin and used it to tilt her mouth upward toward his. She stared into his eyes until it was uncomfortable to do so, then closed her eyes and let herself feel the gentleness of this powerful man, as his lips touched her own.

  “Oh,” she murmured.

  “Is that Owe as in Owen?” he teased. “Or, oh as in—”

  “Oh as in ohmigod,” she whispered. She wanted this. She’d been waiting her whole life for this.

  She simply didn’t believe it would last. The betrayal of her college boyfriend had hardened her heart. The betrayal of her married lover had shattered it. She’d glued the pieces back together, but it was so very fragile now. If Owen broke her heart again, the resulting shards would be impossible to repair.

  She couldn’t take that risk. She wouldn’t take that risk.

  She leaned back and looked into his eyes. “I don’t love you, Owe … n,” she said. “I won’t love you.”

  She saw the pain flicker in his eyes before it was hidden behind a gaze that had turned to ice. She knew the risk he’d taken, revealing his feelings to her. She had the urge to offer solace. But it was too dangerous to feel sympathy for him. She had to protect herself first.

  She was expecting a scene. She was expecting protestations of undying affection. She was expecting him to fight for the right to love her.

  Instead, she saw a muscle jerk in his cheek as he clenched his teeth, remaining silent.

  She put a hand to his nape and brought his head down so she could kiss him good-bye.

  He straightened, so her hand fell away, then removed his arm from around her shoulder as he reached down and picked up the book of Texas artists. He cleared his throat and said, “What page did you say my mother’s painting was on?”

  She stared at him, feeling an ache so painful inside that she wasn’t sure she could bear it. So. That was it. He hadn’t really loved her. He’d only been saying the words. She’d been right not to trust him with her heart.

  As the tears welled in her eyes, she realized she’d already offered him her heart without realizing it. And he’d broken the damned thing without even trying.

  “Which page?” Owen asked brusquely, as he thumbed through the book of Texas artists.

  “It’s called A Perfect Lady,” Bay said. “Page forty-two.”

  Bay forced herself to stare at the painting when Owen set the book across their knees. She was surprised to see writing above a painting of a girl on a horse at a rodeo. “‘To my own Perfect Lady. All my love, Dad,’” Bay read aloud. “I can’t believe this,” she said as she turned to look at Owen. “Your mother painted Cindy Ridge-way!”

  Owen wasn’t looking back at her. He was staring at the painting. “Yeah. And made her even more beautiful than she was. That’s what my mother does, you know. She takes the imperfect world and makes it perfect. A Perfect Lady.”

  Bay looked at the reproduction of the oil painting and saw the things she hadn’t noticed at first. In the photo of Cindy and Clay she’d found in the bedroom, Cindy’s right eyebrow arched higher than the left. In the painting, they were symmetrical. In the bedroom photo, her chin was too sharp, but that had been softened. And her eyes were a little too far apart, but they’d been moved closer together, so Cindy possessed startling beauty in the painting.

  “The painting is beautiful,” Bay said. “But it’s not real. Nobody’s perfect. Nothing’s perfect. The more I look at it, the less I like it,” she said flatly. “If Paul Ridge-way really loved his daughter he would hate this painting. Because it doesn’t show her as she really is. But maybe that’s how Paul saw his daughter. Perfect.”

  “Oh, shit,” Owen said.

  “What’s the matter?”

  He slammed the book closed and dropped it on the floor as he rose to his feet and headed down the hall. Bay followed after him.

  She found him staring at the same painting, which was hanging on the wall. “This is the ‘perfect lady’ Hank was talking about,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Remember that clue I told you Hank left me in his hat? He told me to find the perfect lady, and I’d find the thief. Here it is, A Perfect Lady, hanging in Paul Ridge-way’s house. I’m not sure how those VX mines are connected to Cindy Ridgeway’s death, but I’m willing to bet that somehow they are.”

  “How?” Bay asked.

  “Only Paul Ridgeway knows the answer to that. But now I have the motive I was missing for why Paul might be involved with those VX mines. It isn’t money. It has something to do with the death of his daughter. Maybe that vagrant who killed her was involved with those mines, or maybe Paul’s using the mines to exact some sort of revenge.

  “Hank must have found out something that implicated Paul. Then we came along and killed his two Dobermans. You can bet Paul isn’t going to leave us alive to talk. We know too mu
ch that can incriminate him.”

  “Maybe we better get out of here,” Bay said.

  Owen swore under his breath.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I told Paul where to find Clay and Luke. He’s had us sitting tight here while he goes after them.”

  “You don’t know that they’re at your father’s hunting cabin,” Bay said.

  “Whatever government agency got Clay involved in this mess might have them hidden in a safe house somewhere,” Owen conceded. “But we’ve got to find out for sure. It’s time to get the hell out of Dodge.”

  WHEN THEY WERE AIRBORNE IN THE HELICOPTER, OWEN said, “Who can you reach with that radio?”

  Bay tried the radio and said, “It’s not working.”

  “It was working before!”

  “Well, it’s not working now,” Bay said certainly. “It’s broken.”

  “Paul wasn’t taking any chances,” Owen muttered. “Let’s get back to the airport in Alpine. My jet’s there. We can phone my boss and get him moving toward that hunting cabin.”

  They reached the airport in Alpine as the predawn light made shapes from shadows. As they approached the helipad, Bay said, “There’s a car on the tarmac waiting for us. Two men in suits with guns are standing next to it.”

  “Yeah, but whose side are they on?” Owen wondered aloud.

  “What do you want me to do?” Bay asked.

  Owen took one look at the gas gauge and realized they didn’t have many options. “Don’t land here,” Owen said. “Head for the hangar where I left my jet.”

  As Bay headed the helicopter in the direction Owen had ordered, the two men got into their car and followed.

  “This is going to be close,” Owen said.

  “Can we get your jet off the ground before they catch up to us?”

  Owen smiled. “Before we headed for Alpine, I made sure it was refueled and ready to go. I made a deal with one of the maintenance men to leave it outside the hangar. If we can get there with a little room to spare, we can beat them.”

  “Maybe they’re the good guys,” Bay suggested. “Maybe they aren’t involved with Paul.”

  “Then why the show of force?” Owen asked. “What are they doing here watching the airport?”

  Owen was out the door of the helicopter the instant Bay landed. “Come on,” he urged. “Let’s move!”

  He ran toward the jet, hoping the mechanic had done the flight check he’d asked him to do, because there wasn’t time for it now. He could see the faces of the two men he assumed were Paul’s thugs through the car windshield. He got into the pilot’s seat and waited for Bay to step into the jet and close the door behind her.

  The thugs got out of their car and headed toward them on the run.

  “They’re not shooting,” Bay said. “Maybe we should wait and see what they want.”

  “What if what they want is to take us someplace more private to shoot us?”

  “All right. Go. Let’s go!”

  Owen taxied the jet onto the runway and had it in the air moments later. He picked up the radio to contact the tower and swore. “The radio doesn’t work!”

  Obviously, his own mechanic hadn’t been the only one at work on the jet. Owen wondered what else might have been “fixed.” He checked the fuel gauge and the hydraulic fluid levels and they seemed fine, but that didn’t mean a leak hadn’t been put in the lines somewhere.

  “We’re in trouble, aren’t we?” Bay asked.

  “As far as I know, all that’s been sabotaged is the radio. Paul has a pretty good idea where I’m going, so he won’t have any trouble following us. The only question is, will we get there in time?”

  “You said Clay could take care of himself and Luke.”

  “He can,” Owen said. “But I suppose it depends on how much firepower Paul shows up with. Or whether he decides to bring along one of those VX mines.”

  “He’d never do that. Would he?” Bay asked, her eyes wide with horror.

  “Who knows what that crazy sonofabitch will do,” Owen muttered.

  “What are you going to use to fight him?” Bay asked. “I presume you have guns we can pick up at the Castle.”

  “There are plenty of guns at the hunting cabin,” Owen said. “But there’s no phone there, either—my father’s idea of ‘getting away.’ It makes sense to stop at the Castle long enough to call in the cavalry. On the other hand, there’s a landing strip right by the hunting cabin. We could go directly there. That would save us some flying time.”

  Bay bit her lip. “What do you suggest?”

  “A few minutes could make all the difference,” Owen said. “Or no difference at all, if Clay and Luke aren’t at the cabin. Or if I’m way off base with what I’m supposing is the truth.” Owen aimed the plane’s nose up, gaining altitude as fast as he could.

  “I don’t think you’re mistaken about Paul Ridgeway,” Bay said. “If that means anything. But maybe we should stop at the Castle and tell someone what we know in case … in case something happens to us.”

  “I see what you mean, Red. We’ll call Mabry as soon as we land.”

  One of the jet engines flamed out.

  “It seems Ridgeway wanted to make sure we didn’t tell anyone what we know,” Owen said grimly.

  “Are we going to crash?” Bay was so scared, her lungs had seized up, and she had a death grip on the edge of the seat.

  “We’ve got plenty of altitude to work with. We can fly on one engine if nothing else goes wrong.”

  No sooner had Owen spoken than the hydraulic system failed. “Guess that stop at the Castle is out,” Owen said. “We’ll shoot for the landing strip at the cabin.”

  Bay had never panicked in an emergency, but she was having trouble catching her breath, and her heart was racing so fast it hurt. “If you think about it, this was the smart way for Ridgeway to be rid of us. We crash and there are no bullet holes to explain.”

  “Just a foolish pilot who left the airport in such a hurry he didn’t do his flight check. No one will know we were forced into that hurried flight by two thugs with guns.”

  Bay let go of the seat with her left hand and clutched Owen’s thigh. “I’m frightened, Owe.”

  He wished he could take his hand off the controls to comfort her, but with diminished hydraulics, he needed all his strength to keep the jet level and steady in the air.

  “Think back on that paper you did on hydraulics. Any useful suggestions?” he asked with a grin.

  She frowned and shook her head. “But I did another one on the most common causes of airplane crashes that—”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “How much do you know about soaring?” Bay asked.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “A Canadian pilot flew a jumbo jet to a safe landing after it ran out of fuel by applying soaring techniques to keep his plane in the air.”

  “I went soaring once over Vermont to get a good, quiet look at the fall foliage,” Owen admitted.

  “So all you have to do is keep the wings level and do a little sideslipping if the wind blows us off course—”

  “Got it,” Owen said. “Assuming we lose that second engine and need—”

  The second engine flamed out.

  Owen looked at Bay, who looked back, her eyes wide with terror. “Don’t panic,” he said. “I have plenty of experience. As I recall, that soaring trip lasted several hours.”

  “You’re a laugh a minute,” Bay said.

  “Any last words you want to impart?” Owen said, his features turning grim. “If you’re so certain we’ve come to the end of our rope?”

  Owen wasn’t sure what he wanted her to say. Maybe that she loved him, after all. Or that she regretted not taking the chance of loving him. She had to feel something. He couldn’t feel what he did unless there was something coming back from her. Maybe he was trying to make something happen that was never destined to happen. Maybe he was knocking his head against a brick wall, and all he was going t
o get for it was a big, painful lump.

  “Owe,” she said. “I do have feelings for you.”

  “Feelings,” he said. “Can you be more specific?”

  “I think I might—”

  “Hold that thought, Red,” he said as the jet started to plummet. “I think I’m going to be busy for the next few minutes.”

  Chapter 18

  BILLY HAD SPENT THREE DAYS IN THE HOSPItal and another week in bed at home. There hadn’t been much else to do but stare at the ceiling and think. The one thought he couldn’t get out of his head was I’m a Blackthorne.

  It explained so much he hadn’t understood. Why he had never been able to please his “father,” no matter how hard he’d tried. Why his mother had always looked so sad. Why he’d grown so much taller than his “father,” and had crow-black hair instead of brown, like both his parents. Why he’d been so much smarter than his “father,” who’d made so much fun of him for getting good grades that he’d stopped doing it. Why his “father” had always seemed so angry and had taken it out on his only “son.”

  Billy had always believed he didn’t fit somehow. Now he knew why. And that knowledge had changed everything.

  Summer Blackthorne is my half sister.

  That information had been stunning. And devastating. No wonder they’d felt such an affinity for one another. No wonder they’d become friends. He shuddered to think what might have happened if… Maybe the same instinct that had drawn them together had kept him from letting their relationship get any more intimate than it had. No wonder his mother had gone crazy when she’d seen them kissing on the porch.

  Knowing he was related to Summer didn’t make the ache in his heart hurt any less. Of all the wounds he’d suffered, that one was the worst. Summer had been his ideal life partner, and now she was forbidden to him. He was glad he didn’t have to tell her the truth before he left.

  One good thing had come out of all of this. He was going to have the chance to make something of himself. Billy had watched a Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association field agent at work at the stockyard, when he’d been stuck doing more menial tasks, like drawing blood from cattle for brucellosis card tests.