by BJ James
“Here you are, sir.”
Adams looked into bright, clear eyes, but it was Jefferson’s he saw. Beautiful eyes, as darkly blue as the evening sky. Eyes with the truth of his emotions carefully shielded.
The incident with Junior Rabb had changed all their lives. Altered how they felt about themselves. Adams wondered now if prison hadn’t been easier than what Jefferson had been left to face, too young and alone.
“Sir?”
Adams heard the confusion in Officer Hamilton’s voice and shook off the pall of distraction. “I beg your pardon?”
“Sheriff Rivers will see you now.”
Adams was half expecting the formal young man to salute him. Instead, he threw open the door to Jericho’s office and motioned Adams inside.
“Adams.” Looking every inch the astute and intuitive law-enforcement officer he was, Jericho laid down a yellowing folder and stood to offer his hand. “You’re prompt. Thank you for that.”
Ignoring the folder, Adams chuckled. “Old habits die hard, don’t they? I wonder if any of the courtesies Lady Mary drilled into her pupils were ever forgotten.”
“Not likely.” Jericho chortled. “It would mean our lives, even today, if she thought we did.”
“She’s still alive?” Adam’s brows lifted in surprise.
“Certainly, and not a bit shy about cracking the knuckles of her former pupils caught in transgressions.” Jericho sobered. “She would love to see you. The Cades were her favorites, in turn. Especially Jefferson. Maybe she recognized he was the more sensitive of the rambunctious musketeers.”
“Rambunctious?” Adams took the seat indicated. “I suppose we were, without the influence of a mother, or mothers, as the case was.” Mention of the maiden lady who lived alone in a crumbling city home of her forefathers brought back memories. “In some things Gus aspired for finer things for his sons.
“When we were of the proper age, twice a week, rain or shine, he spiffed us up, slicked back our hair and marched us into Lady Mary’s house for instruction in the art of being gentlemen. Twice a week for two years, she drilled habits into us that would last a lifetime.” Adams chuckled again. “I still have trouble with ladies who object to doors being opened for them. I feel like Lady Mary is looking over my shoulder expecting that I insist a lady must act as she thought ladies should.”
“I was half-grown before I realized her name was Mary Alston, and teaching unruly children manners and ballroom dancing was her way of supplementing a very small income.” As Jericho spoke, he riffled the pages of the report he’d abandoned.
“I hated her classes and called them sissy stuff then. But if I had children and lived in Belle Terre, there’s nothing I would like better than to expose them to Lady Mary’s teachings.”
“But you won’t be.” Jericho shot a considering look at Adams. “You won’t be staying or living in Belle Terre.”
Adams knew then the time of reminiscing had ended. “Once I’ve finished with what I came to do, I’ll be leaving. It’s best for everyone that I go.”
“I doubt Eden or your brothers would agree with that.” Pages riffled again, but Jericho didn’t say any more.
“It’s because of Eden and my brothers that I have to leave. I think you know that as well as I do, Jericho.”
“Because of Junior Rabb and the incident last night at the river cottage? For which, by the way, Mr. Rabb offered an airtight alibi.” A hint of frustration slipped beyond Jericho’s iron control and colored his voice in the last words of his comment.
“Can you think of a better reason?” Adams countered.
“Actually I can’t think of any reason at all.” Leaving his desk, Jericho crossed to the window. For a time he was silent, deep in his thoughts.
Adams was familiar with the tactic of silence. One that often spurred the uninitiated to fill the void with nervous conversation and unintentional revelations. As a veteran practitioner of the strategy, he kept his own silence and bided his time.
Jericho turned from the window, a conceding, humorless smile on his craggy face. “It never made sense, you know.”
Adams sat stolidly, keeping his own silence.
“We were friends, Adams. I knew you as well as I knew myself. Sometimes better. You were always slow to anger but quick to forgive. I can’t remember how many times I watched you face down a troublemaker or a bully with only that lazy, cocksure grin. But when you fought, it was the last resort. You never went looking for trouble in your life. Dammit, Adams!” Pausing, Jericho scraped a palm across his chin and turned a grim look to the man who had been his trusted childhood friend. “You might never run from trouble, but you never in your life went looking for it.”
“Obviously I did, in Rabb Town, thirteen years ago.”
“No.” Jericho returned to his desk, his fists braced on the folder. “It goes too much against the grain. There’s something you aren’t telling me. The same thing you didn’t tell the man who was sheriff of Belle Terre then.”
Snatching up the folder, Jericho held it toward Adams. “I’ve gone over this more times than I can remember, searching for something that will explain what you were supposed to have done. Like tigers, Cades don’t change stripes, Adams.”
“Tsk, tsk, Jericho. Don’t tell me computerization hasn’t swept through the police department of Belle Terre.” Adams shook his head in mock surprise. “Surely our illustrious city isn’t so backward that you had to go digging into files that should be marked ancient history, over and done with.”
Jericho wouldn’t be distracted. “Oh, it’s been cannibalized by our computer system. Never doubt that. But I wanted the original. I wanted to hold these particular papers in my hand. I keep thinking there’s something somebody missed and maybe it’s here. Missed even by the blasted computers.”
“Holding a yellowing sheaf of papers is going to tell you something the same report reprinted on crisp new paper won’t?” Adams’ laugh was friendly mockery. “Have you taken up divining? Is that what this is all about? Are you reading old papers like the elderly Gypsy who lived down near the wharf read palms and tea leaves and tarot cards for us when we were kids?”
“Funny one, Cade,” Jericho drawled as he had in the past when he thought Adams was hustling him. “Just to let you know, as far as I’m concerned, nothing this full of holes is ever over and done with. It shouldn’t have been then. It isn’t now.”
“Leave it, Jericho.” Adams’ voice took on a harsh note. “You’ve enough to do without dragging out old files. I repeat, it’s ancient history.”
“Maybe it was.” Jericho tossed the file onto his desk, ignoring the stained pages that spilled from it. “It isn’t anymore, thanks to Junior Rabb.”
“We’re back to the incident at the cottage.” Adams sighed heavily. A muscle quivered in his cheek as his teeth closed in a hard clench.
“Doesn’t everything come full circle, Adams?” Jericho asked quietly. “And in this, the end of the circle is you, and the answers only you can give me.”
“I have no answers for you, Jericho. None I didn’t give at the time.”
It was Jericho’s moment to sigh. His turn to clench his jaw. “All right,” he said suddenly, flexing massive shoulders as if he’d been too tense for too long. “We’ll leave it at that.”
“For now,” Adams interpreted.
“For now,” Jericho agreed.
“Then if this little talk is finished…”
Adams had begun to rise when Jericho spoke again. “There are a couple more things.”
“Okay.” Adams dropped back into his seat, his elbows resting on the arms of the chair, his fingers steepled before his face. “Let’s hear it.”
“First, I’ve assigned a deputy to watch over Eden. Though with Cullen hovering like a tiger, anyone I send is superfluous.
“I would assign one to you—”
“No!” Adams shot back.
“—but I know you wouldn’t tolerate it,” Jericho finished as if the inter
ruption had never happened. “In any case, the day you can’t best Junior Rabb—if he ever decided to come at you face-to-face—is the day I might believe this.”
Adams watched as the sheriff’s long fingers scattered the papers of the old report even more. “Put it away, Jericho,” he said softly. “There’s nothing you can learn from it.”
Jericho’s narrowed gaze said that, to his frustration, he knew that better than anyone. “You’ve moved out of the cottage.”
“I thought it best. For Eden’s sake.”
“Bunking with Jackson in that tumbledown farmhouse while his horses sleep in state-of-the-art barns? Must be interesting.”
It came as no surprise that Jericho knew where he was staying. “Just one barn so far. He ran out of money before he could finish up at River Trace or Belle Reve.”
“He expects to run horses at both places?”
“Is would be better to say he’s going to try.” Rising from his chair again, Adams said, “Now, if that’s all…”
Jericho stood, as well, offering his hand. “I’m not your enemy, Adams. I could never be anything but your friend.”
“I know.” Ignoring the sheriff’s big hand, Adams clasped his forearm in the salute of their youth. “I’ve always known that, Jericho. I only wish you could understand why circumstances have to be as they are.”
“Maybe someday I will.”
“Maybe not,” Adams returned as he stepped back, and with the slow infectious grin Jericho remembered, he opened the door and left.
Eight
“Look at him.”
Jackson put aside the bridle he had mended and took up another as he joined Adams at the barn door. “Yeah,” he said softly as he looked out over the training paddock. “Look at him.”
“I’d forgotten how amazing he is on a horse.” Another bridle dangled over Adams’ arm as he watched Jefferson put a horse through its paces. “If I didn’t know better, I would swear that horse and Jeffie read each other’s minds.”
“Yeah.” Jackson tipped back the brim of his hat. “I couldn’t have made a go of this if it weren’t for Jeffie. Since I brought the Irish stock to River Trace and moved the Arabians to Belle Reve, he’s worked night and day with me. Lincoln, too, when he could. But even before Dad’s stroke, Jeffie started with the Arabians by dawn every day, did what the old man wanted done there.
“Then he would disappear for most of the afternoon. But always without fail, before sundown, he was back to check on Dad and Belle Reve, then he came to River Trace.”
“To work with the horses,” Adams murmured, his gaze still on the youngest Cade.
“Better than anybody I’ve ever seen.” A bridle jingled as Jackson tossed it onto a peg by the door. “His fishing and hunting guide service is seasonal, but it could be amazingly profitable.”
“Could be,” Adams said, emphasizing the point, “if he spent the time with it.” His bridle joined Jackson’s. Once, the successful toss would have drawn a grin, but neither man felt like smiling as they pondered the gentlest of the brothers who worked his magic with a temperamental stallion. “If there was any time left over for it after all the responsibility he’s shouldered.”
“Yeah,” Jackson said. “He’s been like this since, well, for a long time.”
“Since I left Belle Reve,” Adams finished more precisely.
Jackson nodded once, abruptly. “He quit being a kid the day the judge handed down your sentence. It was as if he decided he had to fill your shoes and his, too. He’s worked nonstop day and night, like a man driven. He wouldn’t have finished high school or gone to college if Gus hadn’t raised so much hell about it.”
Adams laughed then. A dry, humorless sound, ending almost before it began. “Other than Belle Terre and work, only two things ever mattered to Gus.”
“That we learn all Lady Mary could teach us about being gentlemen and that we get an education. How we managed to pay for the last was our problem, but we were to do it.” Jackson sighed, remembering. “For such a sweet person, our Lady Mary could be as tough as the old man. She cracked my shin so many times it’s a wonder her cane didn’t wear out.”
“But she never hurt you.”
“Nah.” Jackson stepped from the barn into the glow of sunset. “But she didn’t quite make a gentleman of me, either.”
Only another man would agree, never the ladies, Adams thought. His attention returned to Jefferson. “He works at his own businesses just enough to keep body and soul together. The rest of himself he gives to the family.”
“Not even any social life. Though not for lack of trying on the ladies’ part. They practically swoon at his feet. If Jeffie noticed, he might pick them up and dust them off, then devastate them with a smile before he walked away.” Jackson’s lips quirked in a puzzled frown. “The kid’s got it all—looks, personality, an uncanny ability to capture real life on canvas.”
“But like his guide service, he only does it enough to make ends meet.” Adams had lived at River Trace for a month, going every day at dawn to Belle Reve. There he worked nonstop until nearly evening. Then it was back to River Trace for more work with the horses. Jackson and Jefferson were with him every step of the way. Every minute of the day. “When does he find time to paint?”
}
“Beats me.” Jackson stepped farther into the training paddock to signal for Jefferson to come in. Over his shoulder, to Adams he said, “But find it he does. You should see the portrait he painted of Robbie… I mean, Eden, for her birthday.
“Jeffie,” Jackson said. “Finish up and call it a day. The horse has had enough, even if you haven’t.”
“A horse will work its heart out for him,” Adams commented as Jefferson guided the horse through the last exercises. The image of a portrait of Eden filled his thoughts. How did Jeffie portray her? What special qualities did he capture on canvas?
Adams would give his soul for a glimpse. But he couldn’t and he wouldn’t, he knew, as he dragged his thoughts back to his brother. “You know as well as I do, Jackson, that he senses when the horse has had enough. It’s Jeffie you’re calling in.”
“He has the touch. More than any of us.” Jackson paused as a sedan made the last curve in the long drive leading to River Trace. “Looks like we have company.”
“Eden’s car.” There was a leap of concern in Adams’ voice as a frown gathered on his rugged features. “She shouldn’t be here. It’s too dangerous.”
“She isn’t, Adams.” Drawing his hat down a notch to shade his eyes, Jackson squinted at the car. “Unless I’m going blind from too much work, that’s Cullen at the wheel, with the pretty little maid, what’s-her-name, in the passenger seat.”
“You’re right.” Adams was suddenly alarmed. Fear clogged his throat as he moved quickly from the barn and was waiting in the drive by the time Cullen brought the sedan to a halt. Wrenching open the driver’s door, Adams asked in a low, desperate tone, “What’s wrong, Cullen? Why are you here? Is Eden hurt? Is—”
“Mistress is fine,” Cullen interrupted, “given the circumstances. From the looks of this, maybe better than you.”
Climbing from the car, the big man closed the door before facing Adams. “It’s hard, isn’t it?” he said kindly, yet surely. “Especially when you’ve both cared so much for so long.”
The islander had never presumed to make personal remarks before. But after observing Cullen at his work in his silently effective way and knowing how attuned he was to all things regarding Eden, Adams wasn’t surprised he’d perceived so much.
“It’s hard,” Adams admitted. “But I’ve faced hardship before. I can again.”
“So has Mistress, but why must she now?” Cullen asked almost casually. “What purpose does it serve?”
“You know why, Cullen. You know what purpose.” Adams looked away, his gaze finding, but not focusing on, Merrie as she leaned against the paddock fence. “The river-cottage vandalism was directed at me. Maybe we can’t prove it, but we don’t have to
have proof to know. I can’t risk bringing any more trouble down on her.”
“And if she was more than willing to take the risk?” When Adams didn’t respond, Cullen continued, “This Junior Rabb person could have gotten to her before, if he’d wanted. But he didn’t and he won’t. He’s cowardly, and unless he’s insane, he won’t dare touch her.”
“If she’s in the way when he tries for me?” Adams settled a bleak look on the unlined face of the islander. “What then?”
“If he ever comes after you, if he’s sane, it will be from behind, when you’re alone. That’s the coward’s way, Adams.”
“I can’t risk it, Cullen.” Adams shook his head slowly. “I’d rather give her up than lose her forever.
“I can’t have her. It was never in the cards. But knowing she’s somewhere in the world, making it a better and splendid place, is enough.” When Cullen would have argued, Adams silenced him with a lift of his hand. “Subject closed. Is that all that brought you out here? Or is there more?”
After speaking with Merrie, Jackson had hung back barely within hearing of the deadly serious conversation. Stepping forward, he explained, “Cullen’s brought us help. It seems Eden’s little Merrie is from Argentina, and she’s an expert horsewoman.”
“Indeed,” Cullen confirmed. “Merrie is more than expert with horses. She loves them to distraction. Which is why her mother, who was a friend of Mistress Eden’s roommate in college, asked her to take the child in. Vincente Alexandre is fearful their daughter will grow up to be a gaucho, rather than a lady. Who better to teach her to be a gentlewoman than an old friend of an old friend? Especially if that teacher is Mistress Eden?”
Adams recognized the name of one of the wealthiest and most influential men in Argentina. “Mr. and Mrs. Alexandre sent their daughter to study in Belle Terre and to work as a maid while she learns to be a lady?” Laughing softly, he added, “You must admit, Cullen, it sounds more than a little farfetched.”
