by Rosalyn West
“She asked me to help save your ass before it gets chewed off by your so-called friends.”
“And why would you want to help me?”
“It’s my job, Mr. Sinclair. I don’t have to like you to save your neck, and you don’t have to like me to be smart enough to stick out your hand so I can keep you from losing everything you’ve worked so hard for.”
“I don’t need help from the likes of you,” Deacon snarled. He snatched Patrice’s arm, dragging her out of the chair. She had the presence of mind to throw up her hand to stop Dodge’s fierce stride forward.
“No, Dodge, it’s all right! It’s all right.”
“Are you sure?” He glanced up into Deacon’s frigid mask of hostility, his own glittering in narrowed eyes.
“Yes.”
Not fully convinced, he put his hand over Patrice’s, feeling the tremors racing through her. He pitched his voice low and steady. “I owe Reeve my life. If you need help, you send someone to get me.”
“She won’t,” Deacon vowed. “You stay away from us. You’re the problem, not the solution.”
“And you’re a fool for believing that, Sinclair, but you’ve a right to your opinion. But God help you if you think those rights extend to raising a hand to that little girl.”
Deacon ignored the threat, pulling Patrice out of the bank, scattering the curious who lingered outside on the walk. He stalked to their carriage and practically threw her up onto the seat. A crack of the whip sent the horse lunging forward, leaving a dust devil in their wake to choke the citizens of Pride.
A mile, then two, passed in tense silence. Patrice sat stiffly, angry, frightened, upset. She glanced at her brother, seeing no promise in the jutting angles cut into his face.
“Deacon—”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” His accusation slashed sharper than the whip. “How could you go begging to that man? Don’t you have an ounce of shame?”
“Shame?” she railed at him. “Don’t talk to me of shame after the way you humiliated me in front of my friend, in front of half the town!”
“This isn’t about hurt feelings, Patrice. It’s about keeping you safe from your own foolishness.”
He sounded so genuinely anxious, Patrice backed down her own arguments to look at him more closely. He was more than just furious. He was afraid.
And as he drew back on the reins, she knew why.
A dozen hooded riders swarmed around their carriage, forcing it to stop in a shadowed nave of trees. Deacon thrust Patrice behind him but had no time to reach for his sidearm as a rifle barrel pressed to his temple.
“Heya, Reverend. You an’ me need to have us a talk.” Tyler circled around the carriage, the only one of his band brave enough to show his face. Or careless enough. He tipped his hat to Patrice, smiling wide. “Hey there, darlin’.”
“What do you want, Fairfax? Get on with it, then get your thugs out of my way.”
Deacon’s gruffness wasn’t appreciated. The man holding him at gunpoint swung viciously, catching the side of his face with the stock of his rifle, toppling him from his superior pose to the dusty road on hands and knees. Gritty laughter sounded beneath the muffling hoods. One of the riders slipped onto the seat to restrain a furious Patrice.
“Well, then let’s get right to it.” Tyler swung off his horse to hunker down beside the dazed aristocrat. “Me an’ the boys here are gettin’ kinda worried about you. Seems you can’t control your little sister. She’s been stirrin’ up talk with the company she’s keeping. Looks bad, her being so disloyal to you … an’ to us. A lesson’s gotta be learned here.”
Deacon swayed up onto his knees to snarl, “Don’t you touch her, you son of a—”
The back of Tyler’s hand silenced the rest of the epithet. “Now, Deke, you know I’d never put a mean hand on Patrice. I’m blamin’ you for lettin’ her stray.” He stood and moved away, purposefully not looking up at Patrice.
As soon as Deacon gained his feet, the riders wove around him, kicking at him, knocking him with their horses, trying to force him off-balance again. It didn’t take Deacon long to tire of it. He grabbed the closest man, jerking him out of the saddle, flinging him to the ground to drive his heel into the man’s windpipe. While the fellow wheezed and purpled, he snatched his pistol free, intent on using it until the hooded figure holding Patrice called out, “I wouldn’t, Sinclair.”
Deacon looked up to see the man’s arm curled about his sister’s neck. A tight squeeze had her clawing ineffectually at the woolen sleeve and convinced him to let the gun drop. Immediately, he was felled by a savage kick in the side.
“Be careful a him, boys,” Tyler drawled. “The reverend here’s a dangerous man. A real killer. How many unarmed folks you shot down in cold blood, Deke? An’ you sneer down at us after all you done?” Tyler crossed to where Deacon sat in the dirt, nursing his ribs. He squatted down fearlessly so that they were nose to nose.
“I got me a surprising offer the other day from someone who wants to buy the Manor real bad. Offered top dollar. What’s a-matter, Rev? Got nothin’ to say about that?”
Clamping down hard on his shock and panic, Deacon gritted out, “What do you want, Fairfax? You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have something in mind.”
“Well, that’s true ‘nough. I been askin’ myself what do I want with that big ol’ place? There’s only one thing in it that has any value to me, and it surely ain’t you.”
“Cut to it, damn you.”
“Well, I got no use for the house an’ I don’t need the money. Guess that leaves your pretty little sister.”
In one swift move, Deacon had him by the throat, hands constricting, jerking Tyler off-balance. And just as fast, the tip of Tyler’s blade nicked in below Deacon’s ear.
“Let me go, or I’ll cut you a new smile.” The green glaze in his eyes sliced as sharply as his knife. It took a minute for the compression to ease and Deacon’s hands to open. Tyler rocked back to rub at the bruises each finger left. “That was stupid.”
“You son of a bitch. You won’t make Patrice your mistress.”
Tyler actually looked surprised. His voice lowered for their hearing alone. “Mistress? I don’t want her for a mistress. I want her for my wife. You may not believe me, but I’d take good care of her. ‘Sides,” he added with a viper’s smile, “no one else is likely to offer for her now that she’s whoring with Reeve Garrett.” When Deacon didn’t recoil with the proper horror, Tyler frowned, perplexed. Then he laughed out loud. “You already knew that? I can’t figure you out, Sinclair. If it was my sister sneaking behind my back like that, making me a laughingstock in front of my friends, I’d have killed them both.”
“We’re not the same kind of men, Fairfax. I walk upright”
“Have your little joke, Rev. It don’t change nothin’. You know what I want. I want your blessing on my upcoming nuptials, and in exchange, I’ll make Patrice a nice wedding present—the mortgage to the Manor signed over to you.”
“Go to hell.”
Tyler’s sly grin never faltered. “Oh, you don’t have to give me your answer right away. Think about it while you’re sleeping under your roof tonight. You got until tomorrow. In the meantime, my friends want a little show of your support to our cause, a token for their hard work on your behalf.”
Deacon waited for the price of his pride to be named, tense, sick inside at what he couldn’t evade.
“We’d like your company tonight when we visit your neighbor.” He glanced at Deacon through eyes void of feeling. “We got a little housewarming planned for Mista Garrett.”
“No!” Patrice surged forward, struggling against her captor’s hold. When her elbow found a tender spot, the man growled a harsh oath and hit her, hard. Senses going black, she scarcely felt him throw her off the seat to the ground. Through dazed eyes, she saw Tyler spring up onto the carriage seat like a panther. The blade in his hand flashed, slicing through the mask where the man’s ear would be. The f
ellow howled, clasping at the spot where red rapidly soaked through white.
“Nobody touches her. Didn’t I make that clear, cooyon?” Then as quick as it blew up, Tyler’s temper mellowed. “Don’t go makin’ me do such things,” he murmured as his arm draped about the man’s shoulders as if all was forgiven. Then loudly, he called, “What you say, Deke? Ready to earn that money?”
Deacon scrambled around the horses on all fours to crouch protectively over Patrice. She clung to him, consciousness ebbing. The last thing she heard was Tyler’s confident laugh.
“I think he’ll be ready, boys.”
The carriage rocked to a halt in front of the Manor’s porch. Patrice came around in woozy degrees as Deacon lifted her down from the seat. His jarring steps woke her the rest of the way as he elbowed into the front parlor. He laid her upon the couch, then strode to the mantel to reach for his scabbard. The blade sang free, glittering like her brother’s intense stare.
“Deacon, no …” She levered up into a sitting position, ignoring the pounding ache in her jaw to grab his coat as he tried to sweep past her. “No!”
“They’re going to pay,” he muttered ferociously. The darkening marks on his brow and cheek lent a savagery to his claim. Patrice hung on, refusing to let him go.
“We’re all going to pay, Deacon. Can’t you see that? We’re all going to pay for your vanity and pride.”
He stopped then, frozen in place by her angry outcry.
“Is this how you planned to keep your promises?” she shouted into his impassive face. “By gambling on the nonexistent charity of men like those? By ignoring honest men like Dodge who could really do some good—just because of their accent? By selling me off to Tyler Fairfax to buy back your honor? Damn you, Deacon! Damn you to hell! You are exactly like our father! You don’t care about anything but the precious Sinclair name!”
He recoiled, revulsion flickering through his slated stare.
She wrenched the saber from his hand to fling it across the room. “Don’t bother tossing away your life to preserve something you can no longer claim.”
“Children!” Hannah bustled into the room, shocked by what she’d overheard. “What’s going on here?”
Patrice turned to her with eyes flashing. “Deacon can tell you, Mother. Make him tell you everything. I’m going for air.”
As she stormed out, Hannah looked to her son, repressing her alarm at his battered face. “Deacon, what have you done?”
His breath escaped in a shaky rush, and with it, went the last of his pride. “Oh, Mama,” he mumbled softly, “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
Deacon, how could you? Her heart cried out in anguish as Patrice raced to the barn. Jericho met her in the doorway.
“They mean to put a torch to the Glade, Jericho. Tonight.”
Shock quickly gave way to grim purpose. “He’ll have to be warned.” Then his eyes narrowed. “What you plannin’, Missy?”
“I’m riding over to the Glade—”
“Not alone, you ain’t. Not wid dem hooded cowards out there riding the night.”
“All right. All right. Tell my mother … tell her I forgot something in town and that you’re driving me there. I hope to be back home before they suspect otherwise.”
Jericho nodded, smiling crookedly at her sudden flare for deception. He was back in less than ten minutes, but to Patrice it seemed like hours. She kept imagining Deacon intercepting him with questions he couldn’t answer. But then the carriage pulled up, and she went weak with relief.
“Did Deacon ask you anything?”
“I didn’t see him, ma’am.”
Wherever her brother was, she prayed she wouldn’t see him at the Glade taking up the torch under one of Tyler’s hoods. She scrambled up onto the front seat beside Jericho, stuffing her skirts in around her with a sharp command of, “Go.”
Shadows of twilight stretched out across the pale walls of Glendower Glade by the time the carriage careened to a stop at the front walk. Patrice scanned the glazed windows, seeing no sign of smoke, no red gleam of fire.
They were in time.
She fought with her hoop and petticoat, making a graceless exit from the conveyance. Once aground, she told Jericho, “I want you to go into town.”
“But—”
“I’ll be fine here. I want you to go to the banker, Lieutenant Dodge. Tell him to come quick. He’ll understand. Go on now. Don’t spare the horse. I don’t know how much time we have.”
“You tell Mista Reeve what you got to, then you hie yourself home, you hear?”
Patrice smiled tightly at the paternal rumble of his tone. “I will. You go on now. Lieutenant Dodge, at the bank.”
“Yessum.”
As the carriage spun away, Patrice hurried up the front walkway, only to come to an abrupt stop at the sight of Reeve Garrett framed in the front door. Her mind blanked, flustered by his sudden presence, unprepared for what to tell him.
He wasn’t interested in hearing her say anything.
“Call him back, Patrice,” Reeve ordered flatly. “I don’t want you here.”
Chapter 24
Patrice didn’t let his harsh tone discourage her. She came closer, up onto the steps, across the porch. “Reeve, I have to talk to you. This is important.”
“Not now. Go home, Patrice. I’m in no mood for games.”
“This is no game!”
But he’d stepped back from the door and swung it closed, leaving her to argue with its impersonal wood panels. More afraid than angry, she pulled it open and went inside to hurry after Reeve’s retreating figure.
“Reeve!”
He didn’t pause in his walk to his father’s study. He didn’t bother to close that door to her, going, instead to pour himself a hefty drink of Fairfax Bourbon. He swallowed, then without turning, said, “All right, Patrice. Speak your mind.”
His words wounded on the periphery but her mission was too urgent to allow the luxury of pain. “Tyler and his hood-wearing friends are planning to visit you tonight.”
Reeve took another drink. “I’ll be sure to set enough places at the table.”
“It’s not a social call. They’re planning to burn you out!”
He was frustratingly indifferent to her news. “You’ve been a good neighbor. Now, I suggest you go home before someone finds out you’ve been here.”
“Then you’ll leave. Right?”
“Got no place else I have to be.”
Stunned and terrified by his casual acceptance, she cried, “So you just plan on staying here and letting them burn the house down over your head?”
He looked at her then, face quiet, eyes icy calm. “I don’t plan to let them do anything.”
She understood in one gut-twisting instant. He meant to stand his ground against whatever the odds. Impossible odds. “They’ll kill you.” Her tone flattened with horrible certainty.
Reeve smiled, thin and humorlessly. “They’ll try.” Then his features went rock-hard. “You’ve warned me. Now go.”
If he expected her to turn tail and run for safety, he was sorely mistaken. Patrice squared her shoulders, her jaw adopting a mulish angle. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She meant it. Reeve saw it in the set of her expression, in the cool conviction of her gaze. And it scared him to death. He responded to that fear with a slashing anger.
“Yes, you are. I don’t want you here, Patrice. I don’t need another of your meaningless sacrifices to weigh me down.”
He saw her flinch and knew his cruel words pierced her heart. He couldn’t care. Patrice had to leave, and he’d do anything necessary to see her safely away from the Glade.
“Don’t use me as a excuse to strike back at your father and your brother. I won’t be the reason you pick for throwing caution to the winds just to prove how independent you are.”
She paled. Her confidence wavered. “I’m not—”
“Yes, you are. Don’t you think I had enough of a brain to figure out you were
using me to flaunt your disregard for their rules? Did you think I didn’t know you were always chasing after me jus’ to get them good and riled and ready to bend to your demands? You didn’t want your freedom. You just wanted to be pampered and fussed over. You wouldn’t have run off with me. You wouldn’t have had the courage to turn your back on proper tradition. All that teasing. All that talk. But when it came right down to it, you folded and grabbed on to Jonah, jus’ like I knew you would. You didn’t love him. You jus’ wanted the things he could give you, the things you were used to having.”
Somehow, during the intentionally provoking speech, Reeve forgot its purpose was to scare her off. He took a deep breath before his shaky emotions got the best of him, then pitched his voice low and cold to make her angry enough to walk away.
“Did you tell your folks you couldn’t marry Jonah because I was the one you were in love with? No. You were afraid you’d lose their support. You were afraid of disappointing them and the Sinclair name. Think that’ll change now that I’ve got this place? The folks in town say I killed Jonah to get it. They’re probably busy trying to find some way to fix the squire’s death on me, too, so I could get him out of the way. They’ll say I seduced you so I could steal your family’s respectability along with your honor.”
Voice fragile, she spoke her greatest fear. “Did you?”
Reeve fell silent for a long moment then, his tone deadened, he asked, “Is that what you think?”
She stared at him, eyes huge, luminous with gathering tears. She didn’t answer.
Reeve tossed back the rest of his whiskey before saying, “Go home, Patrice. Game’s over. Nobody wins.”
Demoralized, Patrice fled. Her confusion carried her as far as the front hall. There, she grasped the staircase’s newel post to keep from collapsing under the pressure of hurt and shock and uncertainty. Heartbeats thundered in her ears yet still couldn’t quiet his awful words. Or an even worse truth.
He was right.
She sank down upon the bottom step, legs strengthless, energy drained by an avalanche of misery. For all her bold statements, for all her brazen acts of defiance, never had she gone so far as to threaten her safe return into the family fold. That’s what her mother had tried to tell her.
