The Texan

by Joan Johnston

  Blackjack thought of all the cutting remarks he could make. But he needed her help keeping their secrets. And it appeared they were going to be living in the same house together for some time to come. A gesture of conciliation would cost him nothing and might reduce the level of tension between them.

  He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.

  “You can do better than that,” she said, putting her arms around his shoulders and standing on tiptoe, leaning into his body so her breasts rested against his chest.

  He waited for some feeling of arousal, but it didn’t come. He reached up and took her hands from around his neck. “Don’t do this, Eve.”

  She pressed her lips against his and darted her tongue into his mouth. He exhaled sharply as he felt a stab of desire and took a quick step back.

  She smiled at him, her eyes gleaming with satisfaction. “You always did want me that way, Jackson. Even through the rough times you wanted my body, even if you never quite liked me. Maybe when I get back you’ll need a woman. I can wait.”

  She left him standing alone in the library, vibrating with anger—and unexpected and unwelcome sexual arousal.

  Blackjack knew he couldn’t work anymore. He’d been keeping himself busy so he wouldn’t miss Ren. He’d stayed away from her since his confrontation with Eve. But Eve was leaving soon, and she’d be gone all summer. Surely he could find ways of seeing Ren without getting seen by whatever detectives Eve had hired to keep an eye on him.

  Presuming Ren would be willing to see him.

  Blackjack was already on his way out of the house. He stepped into his pickup and gunned the engine. He knew where he was going. He needed to explain to Ren what had happened. How Eve was blackmailing him. How a divorce was impossible now. How he needed her too much to give her up forever. How life was too short to sweat the small stuff.

  He found himself smiling wryly. Ren was hardly likely to call his marriage to Eve “small stuff.” But love had to count for something. And the woman he loved was Ren.

  He found her at the corral, training one of his cutting horses. She was poetry on a horse as she kept the animal focused on the cow it was cutting from the herd.

  Ren had told him she’d won a bunch of ribbons as a competitor in her youth but hadn’t ridden a cutter after her marriage until Jesse died. He watched her stop the quarter horse on a dime—and give back five cents change—before she ended the training session. She was as graceful and elegant as the horse she rode.

  He realized Ren had been so focused on what she was doing that she hadn’t even known he was there until she stepped down from the saddle and handed the reins to one of her cowhands.

  It was hard to read the look on her face. He smiled, hoping to get a smile in return. It appeared briefly, but was gone again before she reached him.

  “I’m surprised to see you,” she said. “Did we have an appointment that I missed?”

  “I’m not here on business,” he said.

  “Then you should leave.”

  “We have to talk,” he said, following her as she headed toward the house.

  She eyed him sideways. “You’ve made progress on your divorce?”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  She stopped and turned to face him. “What is it you’ve come to say?”

  “There isn’t going to be any divorce.”

  He watched her eyes slide closed, saw the sad wobble of her chin before she gritted her teeth. When she looked at him again, her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Well. I guess that settles that.”

  She started walking again, and he grabbed her arm to stop her. “That settles nothing!”

  She stared at her arm where he was holding her, and he let her go. She started walking again, faster this time.

  “You’re going to give me a heart attack trying to keep up with you,” he said.

  She glared at him, but slowed her step. “Go away, Jackson.”

  She reached the back porch of the house and turned to face him. “I don’t want you to come in. Sam’s working on the books in the study and … Sam blames your son Clay for Luke’s disappearance. I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to come inside.”

  “We can talk here,” he said, grasping her arms to keep her from running again.

  “I think you’ve said everything.”

  “I offered Eve the ranch. I offered her everything, if she’d just give me a divorce.”

  He saw her eyes light up with hope and spoke quickly to lessen her disappointment. “She won’t let me go.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said, her eyes troubled. “If she won’t divorce you, why can’t you divorce her?”

  “Because if I do, she’ll tell Summer that she isn’t my child. That her father is Russell Handy.”

  Ren gasped. “Is that true?”

  “Eve says it is. I checked, and it’s true Summer has a blood type that can’t be genetically linked to mine.”

  “Oh, Jackson. I’m so sorry.”

  “For obvious reasons, I don’t want Summer to know the truth. So Eve is holding me hostage. I’m not proud of what else I have to tell you, but it’s part of what Eve is keeping secret from Summer in exchange for my staying married to her.”

  Ren cocked her head and waited for him to speak.

  “Billy Coburn is my son.”

  “How is that possible?”

  Blackjack grimaced. “I had a brief affair with Dora Coburn twenty-five years ago. A one-night stand. I didn’t know Billy was my son until about a week ago, when Dora told me. Eve had been paying her to keep Billy’s existence a secret from me.”

  “Oh, that poor, poor boy. He’s paid dearly for your mistake.”

  “I know that,” Blackjack said irritably.

  “What are you going to do now that you know?”

  “About what?”

  “To help Billy,” Ren said.

  Blackjack was glad Billy had accepted the offer to become a TSCRA field inspector. Glad he didn’t have to confess that he’d had his son beaten so badly he’d ended up in the hospital. “Billy’s going to be a TSCRA field inspector. A friend of mine is arranging to waive the college degree and any other requirements for the job that Billy doesn’t meet.”

  She pressed a hand against his cheek and said, “That was a kind and generous thing to do, Jackson.”

  He opened his mouth to confess the truth and shut it again. He was on thin ice with Ren as it was. No sense jumping up and down on it. “I hoped that knowing the reason I can’t get a divorce might make a difference to you. That you might reconsider your decision—”

  “Mom? Who are you talking to?”

  “You’ve got to go,” Ren said, pushing him away. “I don’t want Sam to see you here.”

  “We have to talk,” Blackjack said, refusing to back off. “Meet me at my hunting cabin this afternoon, as soon as you can get free.”

  “I can’t do that. I—”

  “Mom?”

  “I’m not leaving until you agree to meet me.”

  “All right,” Ren said, looking desperate as she heard the mechanical whine of Sam’s wheelchair approaching. “I’ll meet you after Sam’s gone home.”

  He squeezed her hands. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  As he headed for his truck, he heard the kitchen screen door slam behind Ren as she entered the house and Sam’s query, “Who was that?”

  REN ANSWERED HER SON WITH THE TRUTH. “I WAS TALKING to Jackson Blackthorne.”

  “What did he want?” Sam demanded.

  “His visit was personal, if that’s what you’re asking,” Ren replied.

  “Did I hear right? Are you planning to meet him later this afternoon? With Luke still missing?”

  Ren flushed but kept her head high. “My plans don’t concern you, Sam.”

  Sam fisted his hands on his useless knees. “When my mother decides to lie down with the bastard who murdered my father, it’s my business. I won’t stand for it. I won’
t let it happen. Dad would roll over in his grave if he knew—”

  “Precisely,” Ren snapped. “Your father is dead. I’m no longer his wife. If I choose to love another man—”

  “Love?” Sam interrupted in a scathing voice. “Are you telling me you love Jackson Blackthorne?”

  Ren nodded. “Yes. I do. And whether I choose to see him or not is nobody’s business but my own.”

  Sam shook his head like an angry bull. “I’m making it my business. Because I loved my father. And because the man you say you love is as much responsible for his death as if he’d pulled the trigger himself.”

  “You know that’s not true!” Ren protested.

  “I’m giving you fair warning not to see him again,” Sam said.

  “Warning? What is it you’re going to do?” Ren asked.

  “If he lays a hand on you, I’ll do what Dad would have done. Kill him.”

  “That’s crazy talk!”

  “It won’t look like murder,” Sam said, his eyes narrowed in malice. “It’ll be an accident. A hunting accident like the one that killed Dad. Or a car accident. Or he might accidentally swallow some poison. Or—”

  “That’s enough!” Ren was trembling, because she believed Sam would do what he’d promised. His hatred of the Blackthornes had festered for thirteen years, ever since he’d lost the use of his legs. To her shame, she’d allowed Jesse to feed that hatred without intervening. Now she would pay the price for standing back and letting this insane feud between the Blackthornes and the Creeds go on and on without trying to stop it.

  “What can I say to change your mind?” she said to her son.

  “Say you won’t ever see him again,” Sam replied.

  Ren realized she had a choice. She could ask her son to leave, to take his hatred and go away and never come back. Because nothing was going to be resolved by her avoiding Jackson Blackthorne. The feud would still be there to haunt future generations of Creeds.

  But right now, with Luke missing and Callie living in Australia, Sam and Bay were the only family she had left. And she didn’t want to send him away.

  In much the same way as Blackjack had chosen to remain in a miserable marriage rather than ruin his daughter’s happiness, her first loyalty must be to her son. She was certain that, with time, she could make Sam see reason. Meanwhile, she and Blackjack would have to wait.

  “I need to see him once more.”

  “Not on your—”

  She held up her hand to silence Sam, so she could finish. “Once more. So he doesn’t come here again. So he knows it’s finished between us.”

  “When? Now?”

  She nodded, her throat thick with emotion. “I promise after I tell him good-bye, I won’t ever see him again.”

  Chapter 19

  “DO YOU THINK WE’RE GOING TO MAKE IT?” Bay asked Owen, as she stared out the window at the clouds below them. Without the noise of the jet engines, it was eerily silent. And they were headed down. Fast.

  “I wish I could say yes. But that would be a lie,” Owen replied as he manhandled the controls with superhuman effort to level the plane.

  Bay was gripping the seat so hard, her fingernails were putting crescents in the soft leather. “What are our chances?”

  “Honestly? I wouldn’t bet the ranch we’re going to get onto the ground in one piece.”

  Bay felt her stomach turn over. “Thank you for telling me the truth.”

  “I figured you might want to say a prayer or something,” he said as he fought to level the plane.

  “I’ve already done that,” she admitted. “I think it’s leveling off,” she added hopefully.

  Owen grunted with effort as he pulled on the yoke. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “How much longer till we’re on the ground?”

  He shot a quick grin at her. “Do you want the time if we make a soft landing? Or if we go in headfirst?”

  She laughed, something she wouldn’t have thought possible under the circumstances. “I think I’ll opt for optimism. How much longer for a soft landing?”

  “Maybe fifteen minutes.”

  “That’s not very long.”

  “Especially if it turns out to be the rest of your life,” Owen said under his breath.

  Fifteen minutes was a great deal more time than Bay needed to have her life flash before her eyes. She hadn’t married. She couldn’t have children. There was even another vet to take up the slack in Bitter Creek, so she wouldn’t be missed.

  There wasn’t much left of her family. The nine people who had sat down to dinner at Three Oaks each night when her father was alive—in the days when Callie was still married to her first husband and had given her a niece and nephew—had dwindled to herself, her mother, and Sam.

  And Luke. Wherever he was.

  She didn’t regret making this journey to search for her brother. She only wished she’d been more successful in finding him. She was sorry she wasn’t going to be there to help when Paul Ridgeway came hunting for him.

  And she wished she’d told Owen she loved him.

  She glanced at his profile, which looked so much like all the Blackthorne men. How strange that she should fall in love with him. How strange that of all the men she’d known, she’d learned to trust a Blackthorne. But she did. Which might have something to do with the fact her life had been in Owen’s hands more times than she could count during their journey, and he’d always come through for her.

  She felt the plane sideslipping, and they lost altitude. She put a hand to her stomach in an effort to keep it in place. She was scared to the bone, but trying not to lose her infamous cool. “I feel like a kid in the backseat of my parents’ station wagon, but I can’t help asking. Are we there yet?”

  “Soon,” Owen bit out.

  For the first time, Bay noticed the sweat on Owen’s forehead and above his lip. A day’s growth of beard shadowed his face. There were dark circles under his eyes. He was barely recovered from the VX nerve gas and the infections he’d fought. Yet he’d never once complained. Or revealed his own fears.

  “What’s your greatest regret?” she asked.

  He turned to look at her, then focused his eyes on the windshield in front of him. “You.”

  She felt an ache in her chest. “That you admitted you loved me? Or that you took me with you?”

  “Both.”

  “Will it help if I say I’m in love with you?”

  He shot another quick look in her direction, but a sudden gust of wind hit, and he had to focus on sideslipping the plane. When it was steady again, he focused piercing gray eyes on her and asked, “Are you in love with me?”

  “I think so.”

  “Where does that leave us?” he asked. “I mean, considering all the barriers you mentioned the first time I brought up the subject.”

  “I guess we’d have to find a way to make Sam accept you.”

  Owen shook his head and swore.

  “What’s wrong?” Bay asked anxiously, looking out the window at the deceptively fluffy cushion of clouds, wondering if the plane was going down like a bullet any second.

  “Why do our families always have to get involved in this?”

  “You know the answer to that without me saying it,” Bay replied.

  “What happens if you can’t convince your brother to accept me into the family?”

  “I haven’t gotten that far in my planning,” Bay admitted.

  “Neither of us is getting any younger,” Owen said.

  “I’d be grateful if we just get a little older,” Bay quipped.

  “I’d laugh, but right now, that isn’t funny.”

  Bay sobered. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Tighten your seat belt,” Owen said. “I think it’s time we put this plane on the ground.”

  They came out of the clouds suddenly, and Bay could see the ground beneath them. It was flat all right, but covered with tightly bunched mesquite trees, whose roots traveled as much as a hundred feet undergr
ound to find water, and whose spiny branches scratched festering wounds in cattle where blowflies laid their eggs.

  She turned to Owen and asked fearfully, “Where’s the runway?”

  “It seems to be a bit overgrown.”

  Bay searched for the runway again, looking for a break in the vegetation. “I don’t see it. Oh, there it is.”

  Overgrown was an understatement. There was more green than brown in the strip of land. Bay hoped it was grass. “I see the cabin, too,” she said. “Ohmigod! It’s Luke. And Clay.”

  The two men were in an open jeep, racing for the runway. Obviously, they’d realized Bay and Owen were in trouble and wanted to be there when they landed—or crash-landed—to help.

  “See,” Owen said with a flashing smile. “I told you Clay had rescued your brother.”

  “It sure looks that way,” Bay said, returning his smile. “I’m so glad they’re both safe. Apparently, Ridgeway hasn’t been here yet, either. So that’s a bit more good luck.”

  “Save some of that luck for our landing,” Owen murmured. “We’re going to need it.”

  “Oh, God,” Bay shrieked.

  “What?” Owen snapped.

  “There’s a mesquite tree growing in the middle of the runway!”

  “We’ll be landing just beyond it,” Owen said grimly. “I hope,” he added under his breath.

  Bay couldn’t even reach for Owen’s hand, because he needed both of them to control the yoke. She tightened her seat belt yet again, so she felt like she was wearing a strait jacket—appropriate dress for someone as crazy as she had to have been to come along on this trip.

  But even if this was the end, she realized she couldn’t regret the journey. Because she’d fallen in love.

  She closed her eyes tight and started to pray. Our Father, Who art in heaven…

  She heard the wheels chirp as they hit a bit of pavement, felt her stomach lurch as they bounced up again, heard Owen’s vicious curse as he fought the jet back down.

  Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come…

  “Hot damn!” Owen crowed. “We’re down.”

  Bay opened her eyes. And barely managed not to scream. They were careening down the overgrown runway, brakes screaming as Owen stood on them. She closed her eyes and kept on praying.