Remembering Red Thunder

by Sylvie Kurtz

  Angus seemed to wither before his eyes. He slumped onto a stool like an old man. He gave a sad shake of his head. “There seemed no reason to say anything when you were so happy.”

  “Taryn—”

  “Is waiting for you by the river. I would never do anything to put her in danger.”

  “Tell me why you’re so sure she’s not in any danger.”

  “I tried to make her stay home and wait for you.” Angus looked away. Eyes unfocused, he talked. “When I found you, Lucille was with me. We were on our way to the farmer’s market when the call came in. You know how she likes to go every Saturday morning.”

  Chance nodded, wondering if the pain of betrayal would ease with time.

  “You also know we had a son, Tyler. We lost him when he was twelve. Drowned in that same damn river.” He shook his head. “Part of Lucille died the day we lost him.” He turned to look at Chance. “That part came back to life the day we found you.”

  “She thought I was Tyler?”

  “No, she didn’t delude herself that badly.” He shrugged. “I just couldn’t take another son away from her, even—maybe especially—after I found the truth.”

  “Which was?”

  “That there was nothing for you here. Your parents were dead. Your grandfather was a drunk. Lucille, she needed a son to love….” He held his hands up helplessly. “I thought everything here would settle itself, that’s why I wasn’t worried when you set off. I thought you’d find what you needed and come back home where you belong.”

  Anger burned in Chance’s chest, deadening him. “You were wrong.”

  Angus nodded. “Taryn’s waiting for you.”

  The longer they stayed here, the greater their danger. Despite Angus’s belief that Carter wanted a legal outcome for his loss, Chance couldn’t forget the sheriff’s threat. A man who’d waited fifteen years for revenge would take it any way he could. Chance couldn’t relax until Ashbrook was nothing but a dot in his rearview mirror.

  He’d spotted a sheriff’s car following him. Leading them to an isolated area wasn’t the smartest move to make. But what choice did he have? He couldn’t leave Taryn behind. He needed her home where she was safe.

  Regaining his memory would mean nothing to him if he lost Taryn in the process. “Let’s get this over with.”

  He parked Lucille’s car where the sheriff couldn’t miss it, then, driving Angus’s Jeep, they cut across the razed forest to the abandoned mill. They backtracked to the trailhead. After hiding the vehicle behind some bushes, they jogged onto the trail.

  HER MOUTH DROPPED OPEN and her eyes widened, just as Garth knew they would. She was as easy to read as fiction.

  “Tell me about that day,” Taryn said, her voice squeaking like a mouse. And what a pretty mouse she was. Even with sweat plastering a strand of her brown hair against her forehead, there was something sensual about her. It was those incredible eyes, he decided. That smoky blue against the soft pink of her skin and her gentle features promised a hidden excitement.

  But he wasn’t going to taste it. Not today. He had other plans for her, for her husband.

  “We were sittin’ here.” He pointed to a group of three trees hugged close together. “John Henry was away on one of his binges, so we’d picked up some burgers and fries at the Burger Station. Place closed about five years back.”

  “I thought Ellen was here, too.”

  “No, she didn’t come till later.”

  How much should he say? There was no danger in the truth. Not today. Besides, he liked seeing her eyes widen with shock, that pretty mouth of hers open like an invitation. Maybe he would take a sample after all. Who would know? Who would care? By day’s end, she’d be just another victim of Kyle’s rage.

  “Why did you marry Ellen?” Taryn sat cross-legged, body rounded. Her gaze darted here and there as if looking for an escape. But he knew her type. She’d stay as long as he told her to. She wouldn’t give him any problems. Not until Chance got here. And he was prepared for that event.

  Garth shrugged. “I married Ellen because it was convenient.”

  “Convenient?”

  “I’d gotten in a spot of trouble and the sheriff needed some monetary assistance for Ellen’s care. He didn’t like her bein’ in the state facility. He wanted the best and the best meant private care. Of course, on a sheriff’s salary, he couldn’t afford it.” He slanted her a sheepish grin. “And I’d done quite well for myself buyin’ and sellin’ real estate. You could say I had a nose for investment.”

  She nervously licked her lips. “So you came to an agreement.”

  Garth chuckled. “That we did.”

  “I still don’t get why you married her.”

  A dutiful wife like her probably wouldn’t understand the logic of such an arrangement. The marriage was a technicality that any court could overturn, should anyone care to look at the paperwork. But who would? “Havin’ an invalid wife allows me the freedom of relationships without the danger of permanent entanglements, if you know what I mean.”

  “The pity angle?”

  “The best of both worlds. A wife who can’t object and a ring to ward off the messy expectations of matrimony.”

  He could see his image tarnishing for her. Too bad.

  “Why was Ellen here?” she asked.

  Garth was disappointed at her obvious disgust. “She was trying to win back her man. She didn’t want Kyle to take the job he’d been offered out on a ranch in West Texas. They broke up over the fact.”

  Her eyebrows scrunched in confusion. “So it was Ellen and Kyle who were arguing?”

  “No. She was tryin’ to get to Kyle by cozyin’ up to Kent.”

  “Kyle didn’t like it.” She fanned herself lazily, pretending she was relaxed, but there was a jerky quality to her ease that didn’t fool him.

  “Not by half.”

  She glanced at her watch.

  “Don’t worry, darlin’, I made sure your Chance would be able to find you.” He’d left the note where he’d found it and hadn’t touched a single one of Taryn’s paper-trail markers. He’d hiked the woods with Kent often enough to know how to leave no trail of his own.

  “I still don’t understand how they ended up in the river.”

  “Kyle was in what we called one of his moods. He was lookin’ to pick a fight. Kent didn’t want to get involved so he was leavin’.” And Garth had been bored enough to want to see a good fight culminate from this mood.

  “Kyle pushed him in the water for stepping back from a fight?”

  Garth shook his head. “He was mad at Ellen, so he took it out on his brother. He shoved him, Kent fell backward and into the river.” He could still see the fear on Kent’s face, the shock on Kyle’s. “The river was runnin’ fast because of all the rain we’d had. Kent got swept away.”

  He strode toward her, stopped when she had to look up at him. “You want to know a secret nobody else knows?”

  She shivered as if she’d read his intention. “No.”

  He crouched beside her, rested the side of his hands on her shoulders and cupped her nape with his fingers. “Kyle jumped in the water to save his brother.”

  “But you said—”

  He shrugged. “I had a lot to protect.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There was nothin’ to be done for them. Kent didn’t know how to swim and was petrified of water. Kyle was a good swimmer, but with that current, there was no way he could rescue his twin.”

  She swallowed hard, shifting backward, hiking her hands and purse up higher on her chest.

  “Ellen, she wanted me to jump in, too,” Garth continued. “But you see, I’ve always been good at sizin’ up a situation, calculatin’ the odds and makin’ decisions. This one wasn’t in my favor and I wasn’t goin’ to ruin a good future over losin’ odds.”

  “So Ellen jumped in instead?” Her voice cracked.

  He shook his head. “She tried blackmailin’ me.”

  Her b
reathing quickened, shallowed. “With what?”

  “I got myself a scholarship.” He stroked the back of her neck, felt her shiver for him. “It was my ticket out of this one-stoplight town. She said she’d tell her father and the editor of the Ashbrook Herald and the committee that I got the inside track by gettin’ Alice Addison to write the winnin’ essay for me. Alice was on the committee, you see. She knew just what they were lookin’ for.”

  “How did you get her to write your essay?”

  He laughed. “She wanted sex. I gave it to her.”

  She gulped and swallowed. His pulse quickened. His taste for her sharpened. He leaned forward and whispered in her ear.

  “Without that ticket, I couldn’t have afforded an education. Now, in real life, a degree doesn’t mean much, but it’s an introduction. It tells people you’re somebody even before you get a chance to prove it. I had plans, big plans. I needed that piece of paper and I needed the scholarship to get it. I wasn’t about to let someone ruin it all for me just because I wasn’t fool enough to jump in a ragin’ river and die before I got to live.”

  “How did Ellen know about Alice Addison?”

  He had to admire someone who could keep pushing even when she was scared halfway to death. In spite of the sweat pouring down the side of her face, the fresh scent of flowers after a rain wafted up to him.

  “She saw me with my fly open.” He exaggerated his drawl, knowing it sounded almost like a purr. “My hand was up horse-face Alice’s skirt, my tongue halfway down her throat. Ellen’d come by to drop off a kitten Alice had wanted.”

  “What happened when you refused to help the twins?”

  “Ellen pushed me. I pushed her.” He rocked back on his heels and pointed at an outcropping of rocks. “She fell over there. Hit her head. I knew she’d talk, so I did the only thing I could.”

  “Which was?”

  He stood, forcing Taryn to look up at him again. “I rolled her into the river and watched her drift away.”

  “But she made it out.”

  “Yes, she did.” His gaze drifted to the stampeding water. He saw the scene again with crystal clarity. His jaw tightened. “Thanks to Kyle.”

  Taryn gasped. He looked down at her again, amused. “That’s right, darlin’, he shoved her on the shore and went back into the water after his brother.”

  She started fidgeting as if she were sitting on top of a fire-ant hill. “Kyle didn’t try to kill Ellen?”

  Garth sneered. “Fool tried to save both her and his brother. The river wasn’t about to give all of them up. Not as hungry as it was.”

  “And Ellen hit her head because you pushed her.”

  Garth frowned. Taryn seemed eager now. Why? He bent down and pierced her gaze with his sharpest stare.

  “When the search party got here, I conveniently found Ellen. She was still alive. I was plannin’ on rollin’ her back into the river, only the park ranger chose that time to appear, and I had to make it look as if I was attemptin’ to save her.”

  He wrapped his hand around her ponytail and yanked it until her neck was extended and exposed. “I got in one good hit. Thankfully it scrambled her mind.” There was no one left to deny whatever story he made up. There would be no one this time, either.

  “The blow was enough to keep her in a coma for a couple of years. Then the care at the private facility was workin’ too well.”

  Her eyes were so lovely when they were wide with fear. Her pale skin was temptation itself. Her swallows were making him hard.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The trick to influence,” he said, “is findin’ out what’s in it for the other guy, givin’ him what he wants in exchange for what you want. Ellen got a little help to keep her brain scrambled.”

  Taryn gasped. “You drugged her.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I gave her peace.”

  He dropped his hold on the ponytail and rose. “I thought they’d both drowned. I was real surprised to see Kent again after all this time.”

  “Kent, but—”

  He grinned and cocked his head. “I thought he was Kyle, too. All that anger. It had to be Kyle. Then I saw the scars on his shoulders.”

  Kyle was easy to manipulate. His anger was his downfall. As long as Carter believed Chance Conover was Kyle Makepeace, any accident that happened to “Kyle” wouldn’t be investigated too closely. Kent was another matter. So he’d swiped the fingerprint report from the fax machine. “Kyle” would be dead before Carter could order a second set, and the point would become moot. His secrets would stay safe.

  “I don’t understand,” Taryn said. The least he could do is let her die knowing the man she loved was as honorable as she thought he was.

  “When he was five, Kent crawled into a drainage ditch to retrieve a ball. He got stuck. Kyle and I poured water over him, thinkin’ that would make him slip out. It didn’t. So we pulled him out by his feet. Tore his shoulders up bad.”

  “I thought the scars had come from being tossed in the river.”

  “We learn something new every day, don’t we?”

  “Well,” Taryn said, getting up, “I’ve enjoyed our conversation, but I’d better get going. After all, I did promise you I’d get Chance out of town, and it’s getting late.”

  “Stay.” From under his jacket, he pulled out a gun. The movement caught the sun, making the barrel flash. He’d always enjoyed a bit of drama.

  She froze. Her eyes grew impossibly wide. He imagined that’s what she looked like in the throes of an orgasm. But work always came before pleasure. He had to preserve what he’d built.

  She clutched her purse with both hands until her fingertips were red from the effort. “Is that really necessary?”

  “I’m afraid so.” He chuckled, waving the gun around. “It has no emotions.”

  Then he pressed the muzzle of the pistol against her temple. Marring this beautiful face was a shame, but there was no getting around the problem.

  The scenario was all planned out. Guns were easy enough to come by. It was human nature to follow patterns. Angry because his wife had accepted bail money from his ex-girlfriend’s husband, Kyle had flown into a rage and executed Taryn. Then realizing what he’d done, he’d pushed her into the river and turned the gun on himself, following her to her watery grave like some Romeo after his Juliet.

  Why wouldn’t everyone believe it? History was repeating itself.

  “You’ll be dead before you can feel the pain, darlin’. I promise.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  With Garth’s gun pressed against her temple, Taryn’s mind scrambled to the past. She was twenty-one watching her mother die. Blood and brain sprayed all over her. Her own scream echoed in her mind, paralyzing her with fear.

  She didn’t want to die. Not then. Not now.

  Chance’s insistence she learn to handle a weapon was worthless in the face of this lethal power ready to blow a hole through her head. This time there was no dodging the bullet. Not this close.

  Chance, where are you?

  You’ve got to face the thing you fear. When you’re facing that gun, you’ve got to be willing to get shot. Chance’s words floated in the chaos swirling in her mind.

  Be willing to get shot. How she’d balked at that concept. It went against every survival instinct. In the face of danger, you ran, you fought, you screamed, you did something. You didn’t calmly face the weapon and accept to be shot. To do so meant accepting death. Hers and her baby’s. And Chance’s. Because the hard edge to Garth’s gaze told her there would be no survivors here today.

  To give her unborn child life, to give Chance the truth of his past, she had to be willing to take that bullet.

  Once she made the choice, the chaos in her mind vanished. In its place fell a calm so serene, the whole world seemed to slow. Every detail of the woods surrounding her came into sharp focus. The green of the leaves, the roughness of the bark, the rusty litter at her feet. The scent of Garth’s cologne became a locator beaco
n.

  Her breath puffed evenly. The drum of her pulse beat unhurried. Options opened before her. She remembered all the self-defense moves Chance had insisted she learn. They flowed from her instinctively.

  She had all the time she needed.

  She dropped her purse. With an open palm, she slapped Garth’s forearm. The gun dislodged from her temple. Before Garth could straighten, she cuffed him on the ear with the opposite hand, knocking his sense of balance for a loop. Then she swept his feet from under him. He pitched onto his back. The wind was knocked out of him. Stepping on the wrist of his right gun hand, she released the weapon from his grip, then pointed it at him.

  “You wouldn’t use it,” he said, looking up at her. For the first time since she’d met him, his hair wasn’t perfectly coiffed and his air of smooth confidence looked rumpled.

  Taryn took the balanced stance Chance had shown her. Braced as she was, this close, there was no way she could miss, and Garth had to know it.

  He tried to scuttle on his back.

  “Don’t move.”

  “You can’t pull the trigger,” he said. “It’s not in your nature.”

  “Go ahead, Garth,” she said, teeth gritted, “just give me a reason.”

  He was wrong. Pulling that trigger was in her nature. She never would have believed Chance if he’d told her that faced with protecting the ones she loved, she would be willing to kill a man.

  A feeling of fierceness growled in her. She had a child to defend and she wasn’t about to give Garth an inch. Crouching carefully, she reached for her purse and her cell phone. Never wavering from her aim, she dialed Angus’s number and got no answer. She pondered for a moment and dialed 911. She had proof. The sheriff would have to listen.

  As she stood there, gun aimed at Garth’s chest, waiting for help, a terrible sense of sadness swamped her. She thought back to ten years ago, to the night she’d lost her mother. Instead of worrying over a few lost dollars, her mother should have emptied the till, shoved the money at the thief, told her daughter to run—anything to save the life of the child she’d brought into the world. But she’d grown so hard and bitter that her values had warped. Taryn swiped at the tears running down her cheeks.