But he wasn't sitting in it now.
He was standing, shoulders and spine as straight as a man who'd seen so many winters could make them. Instinct told him it would be a mistake to sit while Tyler Kincaid stood.
Not even his throne chair would give him the advantage, if this conversation were going where he figured it would. Where he feared it would, not because Kincaid had a case worth hearing but because all the old memories had come swarming back. They'd been haunting his days and nights, ever since he'd laid eyes on the man the week before.
It was early, way too early for bourbon, but Jonas poured himself one anyway, drank down half at one gulp, refilled the glass and then stood; waiting, for Kincaid to come in. The bastard took his time about it. And damned if he didn't head for the window the second he walked into the room.
Jonas cleared his throat.
"You wanted to see me," he said coldly, "I'm here, not out there."
Kincaid didn't respond. He didn't turn around, either. He just kept looking out that window, his posture every bit as rigid as Jonas's, his arms at his sides.
"Dammit, Kincaid..."
Jonas cocked his head. The windows were open; he could hear voices outside. He craned his neck, saw Caitlin and Leighton. What in tarnation had gotten into the girl today? She was hangin' onto the arm of that spineless nephew of his, lookin' up at him and laughin' her head off.
And Kincaid's hands were knotting into fists, as he listened and watched.
Jonas's eyes narrowed. Did he really think he could have his way with Catie? She was a Baron. Well, she was the next best thing to a Baron, and the world would come to an end before he saw her in the arms of—of—
"Kincaid." Jonas crossed the room and stood behind Tyler. "You got business with me, get to it, otherwise get out of my house and off my land."
Tyler forced himself to turn away from the sight outside and turned, slowly, towards Jonas Baron. The old man looked as imperious as a Roman senator but there was a flicker in his eyes that said he wasn't feeling quite as tough as his words, and his looks, suggested.
"You're good at making that threat, Baron."
"Ain't a threat, it's a promise."
Tyler smiled. What he really wanted was to wrap his hands around the old man's throat, but what good would that do, after all these years? He wanted the answers he'd come for. It was too late for vengeance.
Far too late.
"You're good at pretending you don't know why I'm here, either."
"Business, you said."
"No, Baron, I didn't. I said we're going to talk about something that happened thirty-five years ago." Taking his time, he strolled past Jonas to the cabinet where he remembered the liquor was stored and opened it. "It's too early for me to drink bourbon. Have you something else to wet a man's throat?"
Jonas's mouth turned down as he watched Tyler poke around inside the cabinet. "Makin' yourself at home, ain't you?"
Tyler looked around and smiled. "Sure," he said lazily. "Heck, you know what they say. `Better late than never."'
The men's eyes met, and what Jonas saw made an icy fist close around his gut.
"I ain't much for homilies," he said curtly. "You want somethin' else, try that cabinet just underneath."
The cabinet was a small, well-disguised refrigerator. Tyler reached for a bottle, took his time opening it, lifting it to his lips and taking a long swallow. His throat felt parched, like the desert after an extended dry spell, and there was a cramp in his belly, which was dumb. He wasn't nervous. What was there to be nervous about? He was about to confront his past. Put his demons to rest. Solve the puzzle, whatever in hell you wanted to call it, all thanks to an early-morning phone call from the private investigator.
"I hope you're sitting down, sir," Crane had said, in a tone that conjured up a picture of him wringing his hands with delight. "I have some astounding news."
Tyler took another mouthful of ale.
Astounding was the word for it, all right. And that was the way he was determined to treat it, as news that amazed him, not information that had set his gut churning and prompted another dozen questions that needed answering even more desperately than the original.
He took a deep breath and turned to Jonas.
"I asked you some questions, the last time we spoke." Jonas shrugged his shoulders. "Mebbe."
"Questions about babies born to women on Espada, thirty-five years ago."
"Did you?" Jonas shrugged again. "My memory ain't what it used to be, Kincaid, but if that's what you say—"
"Don't screw with me, old man."
Tyler's words fell like stones between them. Jonas started to answer, saw the tightly controlled fury in the younger man's eyes, and decided keeping quiet might be a better plan.
"I told you I was especially interested in a child born here on or about July 18, thirty-five years ago." Tyler put down the bottle of ale and folded his arms over his chest. "Does that jog your memory, Baron?"
"What if it does?" Jonas folded his arms, too. "Get to the point, Kincaid."
"We talked about a couple of your men whose wives were pregnant that summer."
"You talked. I listened. And I told you there wasn't a way in hell I could remember details like who had a bun in the oven and who didn't, that far back."
"You remembered that your housekeeper had given birth that summer."
"Yeah, well, that's diff'rent. Carmen's been here so long she's part of the family. I put the boy she birthed that summer through medical school." Jonas frowned and looked past Tyler to the grandfather clock in the corner. "I got things to do and places to go, Kincaid. You got somethin' more to tell me, you'd best tell it."
Tyler put his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. "What you didn't remember was that your own wife had a baby that summer, too," he said. His voice was very soft; the look in his eyes flat and unforgiving. "How come you didn't mention that, when I asked you who'd had babies on this ranch, on or about July 18, thirty-five summers ago, Baron? How come you managed to forget that Juanita Baron dropped a litter, too?"
Jonas moved fast, much faster than Tyler would have figured a man his age could move. He shot out a hand, caught Tyler by the shirtfront.
"You watch what you say about my wife," he growled.
"Take your hand off me, old man." Tyler's eyes flashed. "Take it off, or so help me, I'll do what I've been thinking about doing ever since early this morning, I'll pick you up by your neck and throw you through that damned window!"
The men glared at each other, eye to eye, toe to toe. At last, Jonas let go of Tyler's shirt and took a step back.
"How come?" Tyler said, very softly.
"I didn't mention it 'cause it was none of your business."
"I asked you what you knew about babies born on Espada that summer."
"And I answered you." Jonas walked around Tyler, picked up his glass and drank down the rest of his bourbon. His hand trembled; the realization made his stomach turn with selfdisgust. "I don't owe you the details, Kincaid, but since you've asked them, I'll tell you. Yeah, my wife—my first wife—was pregnant back then." He looked at his glass, looked at the bottle of bourbon, picked it up and poured another inch of the liquid. "She died in childbirth."
Tyler nodded. "I know that," he said, and waited to feel something, just as he'd waited when the private detective dropped the news on him earlier, but he felt nothing. "She's buried here, on Espada."
"Yeah. Yeah, she is." Jonas tossed back half his drink, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and walked to the door. "You happy now?"
"Is that what you think I should be?" Tyler said, with a tight smile. "Happy?"
"Why wouldn't you be? You came here, bullied your way into my library, got me to talk about somethin' still hurts me to remember..."
"What does it hurt you to remember, old man?"
"Why, what I just told you. About losin' my wife." Jonas drew a shuddering breath. "Juanita was—she was special."
> He means it, Tyler thought, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the lined face. The old man had done what he'd done, but he'd loved his wife.
For the first time since he'd begun his quest, Tyler wondered if he really wanted to push it any further. The deeper he dug, the more impenetrable things became. Maybe it would be better to leave here thinking he'd found the truth, but not certain of it.
No. Hell, no. Tyler straightened his shoulders. He'd never backed away from anything in his life, and he wasn't going to start now.
"Special," he said softly.
Jonas nodded. "That's right."
"So special that you plucked her baby from her womb and gave it away?"
There it was, Jonas thought, the ugly secret was out, dragged from the darkness where he'd thought he'd buried it so many years ago and thrust into a merciless present. He was ready, though. He'd been ready ever since the day Tyler Kincaid had confronted him. Truth was, he'd been half expecting this moment for a long time.
Thirty-five years ago, he'd still been young enough to believe a man with power and money could dig a hole so deep the secret he dropped into it would never be found. But a lot had happened since then. Governments had fallen. Presidents had tumbled. No secret was safe, really safe, anymore ... not unless you were the only one who kept it.
Jonas sighed. "Kincaid," he said, "you amaze me."
"The feeling's mutual. You amaze me, too, Baron: I once beat the crap out of a man I caught trying to dump a puppy in the river." Tyler's voice roughened and he took a step forward. "Just imagine what I want to do to you."
"You amaze me, boy, because you've got one hell of an imagination. `Plucked the child from her womb and gave it away?' Is that what you're accusin' me of?"
"Yes," Tyler said coldly. "That's exactly what I'm accusing you of."
"Well, I hate to derail this train from wherever you're tryin' to take it, Kincaid, but the simple fact of the matter is, my Juanita died and her baby died with her."
"Her baby?"
"Our baby," Jonas said, mentally cursing himself for the slip. "It was the tragedy of my life, Kincaid, losin' my beloved wife and my child in the blink of an eye."
"A tremendous tragedy. So huge that you married again, a year later."
"Well, what can I tell you, boy? I'm a man who needs a woman at his—"
Jonas gasped as Tyler's hand shot out and curled into the collar of his shirt.
"You lying old bastard," he snarled, as he hoisted Jonas to his toes. "That child didn't die. You got rid of it. You threw your son away, as if he were garbage."
"It ain't true," Jonas croaked. "He's dead, I tell you. He died before he could take his first—"
"Liar! No good, goddamned liar!" Tyler flung the old man from him. God, he was so close to the edge. So close. It had felt good, having his hand around that wattled neck.
"You get out," Jonas said. "Get out now, Kincaid, before I have your sorry ass hauled off my ranch."
"Stop bluffing, Baron. I know the truth, and all the denials in the world won't change it. You must have paid the doctor who attended the delivery a small fortune. Or maybe you had something hanging over his head. Whatever it was, it was enough to get him to sign the death certificate but not enough to keep him from hating himself, from drowning the memory of what he'd done in a bottle—and from telling someone about it, someone who's willing to go into court and testify."
"Who?" Jonas demanded, and then he bit his lip. "Not that it matters. I don't know what you're talkin' about."
"And then there's the grave, up on the hill." Tyler puffed out a breath. "The one that's supposed to hold my—to hold your first wife, and her dead baby." He watched Jonas's face drain of color. "Yes," he said quietly, "that's right, old man. Think about that grave, and what's really in it, and what would happen if it were dug up."
Jonas seemed to shrink inside his skin. He reached out a hand, felt for his armchair and sank into it.
"All right." His voice was flat. "The only body in that there grave is Juanita's. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
Was it? Tyler swallowed dryly. Now that the moment had arrived, he wasn't so sure. He'd been positive he knew what he wanted. Answers. The puzzle solved. The mystery of who he was, and why he'd been abandoned at. birth, unraveled.
But the phone call from the investigator had changed everything.
"Kincaid?"
Tyler jerked his head up. Jonas Baron was looking at him with all the hatred in the world shining in his eyes.
"Do yourself a favor, boy. Don't ask no more questions. Jes' turn around, walk out that door, and the both of us'll forget you were ever here. Okay?"
"No," Tyler answered, even though it was hard not to do just that. "No, it's not okay. I need one last answer."
Jonas grinned mirthlessly. "Thought you might. All right, ask it, then."
Tyler took a deep breath. His heart, his blood, the entire world seemed to stand still.
"I want to know," he said quietly, "why you gave me away."
CHAPTER NINE
TYLER regretted the question as soon as he'd asked it.
He'd come to demand the truth, not to plead for it. And, he thought angrily, that was how he'd sounded, as if he were begging for an explanation.
Hell. What did it matter, how the question sounded? He'd found what he'd come for and more, something he'd never imagined—something he couldn't comprehend.
He'd thought of all of the plausible reasons to explain why he'd been given up at birth. He could almost see his mother as a young girl, frightened and alone, so desperate she'd seen no way out but to get rid of her baby. Even so, he'd never been able to figure out how she could have dumped him on a doorstep and never looked back.
Now he had the explanation, and it drove the knife deeper into his heart. His mother hadn't been a desperate kid, she'd been a woman. She'd died, giving him life, and her husband—the man who'd sired him—had tossed him out as if he were trash.
Pain shot through him again and he shoved it aside and filled the yawning chasm it left with rage.
"Answer me, you son of a bitch," he growled, and swung toward Jonas. "Why did you do it? How could you take your own flesh and blood and throw it away?"
"You weren't thrown away," Jonas said coldly. "I made all the necessary arrangements for your disposal."
"For my disposal," Tyler said, very softly. A muscle knotted in his jaw.
"I ain't gonna play word games, Kincaid. You asked for the truth. Well, that's what I'm tellin' you, and if it ain't pretty enough to suit you, that's just too damned bad."
Tyler balled his hands into fists and shoved them deep into his pockets. "Go on."
Jonas walked to the sideboard, took the bottle of bourbon and poured another couple of inches of it into his glass.
"It wasn't all that difficult. I had me a contact in Atlanta, a lawyer I'd done business with." He tilted the glass to his lips and drank. "He wasn't the sort the Chamber of Commerce likes to talk about but he knew how to handle my problem. He came up with a story to tell you, once you was old enough, 'bout being found on a doorstep somewhere. Got you a birth certificate and put a name on it—"
"John Smith," Tyler said softly, his eyes locked on the old man's face.
Jonas shrugged. "Maybe. It's been a long time. Anyways, the lawyer did everything that needed doin'. Worked up a good story, made you legal, gave you to people who agreed to raise you, right and proper." Jonas drank some more of the bourbon. "Wrote a fat check, to make sure they would."
"Not fat enough," Tyler said coldly. "It must have run out, by the time they died."
"So I heard. I done some checkin' of my own, since you turned up." Jonas took a cigar from his shirt pocket, bit off the tip and spat it into an ashtray. "Anyways, you done all right for yourself, far as I can see."
"Oh, yes," Tyler said, with another terrible smile, "I've done all right for myself."
"Well, then." Jonas put down the glass and wiped the back of his hand
across his mouth. "You came for answers, you got 'em. Far as I can see, that finishes our business." He walked to the door and opened it. "It's Sunday, boy. My one and only day of rest. I'd appreciate it if—"
Tyler slammed the door and stood in front of it, his arms folded over his chest.
"Why?"
"Why, what?"
"Don't play games with me, you old son of a bitch!" He could feel the adrenaline pumping through his body, feel his hands trembling again with the need to put them around Jonas's neck. "You tell me why you gave away your own flesh and blood."
"That's just the point, boy." Jonas's voice was hard and cold. "You weren't my flesh and blood. My wife had been unfaithful. Took herself a lover, some no-good drifter come through here with slick looks and a fancy way with words." His mouth twisted. "You were his whelp, not mine."
"My moth... Your wife told you that?"
The old man laughed. "Hell, no. She put horns on me, but she wasn't stupid. Juanita insisted you were mine, right to the second she went into labor. Figured if she could talk hard enough, fast enough, I'd believe her." Jonas's eyes narrowed to slits. "But I could count, Kincaid. She'd turned me out of her bed nine months before. The only man could have been in that bed was the drifter."
Tyler jammed his hands into his pockets and walked across the room. It was too much to absorb, too much to accept. His mother had died giving him life, his father wasn't this old man but a drifter...
"Who was he?" He swung around, stared at Jonas. "My father. What was his name?"
"I don't remember. Hell, it don't matter a damn anyways. I heard he got hisself killed, tryin' to jump a freight train couple a months after I ran him off. You got any more questions?"
Tyler shook his head. He already had more answers than he could handle. He was the unwanted by-product of an illicit liaison between an unfaithful woman and a drifter. Knowing the story, he couldn't even blame Jonas Baron for his actions. Sure, he could have handled things differently. He could have put the baby up for adoption through regular channels and sure, maybe his life—Tyler's life—would have been easier...
But life was what you made of it, and he'd done the best he could, with his.
Sandra Marton - Taming of Tyler Kincaid Page 12
