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Lone Rider Bodyguard

Page 18

by Harper Allen


  “Suze, I thought you understood.” His tone was strained. “I told you from the start I didn’t believe in marriage. How could I, with Marvin’s track record?”

  He took a step toward her. “But you’ve taught me to believe in love, honey,” he said quietly. “That’s why I’m asking you to live with me. You make my world complete.”

  The first thing she had to do was to get Danny safely into his carry-cot, Susannah told herself numbly. That was important. She had to concentrate on that. It was on the floor by her chair, and, holding her son to her with one arm, she bent slightly forward in her seat and reached for its handle.

  Tye held out his arms. “I’ll hold—”

  “No!”

  He’d broken her concentration, she thought. Right from the start the man had been breaking her concentration, scrambling her thoughts, clouding her judgment. But no more.

  She secured Danny in the cot. Standing, she tucked her hair neatly behind her ears, and as she did the faint scent of French perfume touched the air.

  When they’d first met, she’d told him she wished she could be someone other than who she really was. Until this very moment, she hadn’t realized that she’d made her wish come true.

  Sometime in the past few days she’d forgotten who Susannah Bird was—where she came from, what she stood for. It was time she remembered. It was time she went back to her own world.

  “It would be forever, Suze. I want it to be forever. A piece of paper and a couple of sentences rattled off in front of a justice of the peace couldn’t make what I feel for you any more real.” His eyes were dark with entreaty. “I don’t want you to be my first wife, don’t you see? I want you to be the woman I love for the rest of my life.”

  The thing was, she thought, she still looked at him and saw an angel—a fallen angel, a being too beautiful and wonderful to belong to an ordinary woman like her. I’ll probably always remember you like that, Tye, she told him silently. You’ll always be my weakness, and I’ll never stop loving you. But I love my son, too. And I’ll never be able to raise him as I was raised if I turn my back on everything I believe in.

  “It would be wrong.”

  She met his gaze calmly, and knew the strength she felt was a gift—possibly only a gift on loan, but for right now a much-needed gift. Danny had been a gift. The friends she’d made here at the Double B had been gifts. She had been blessed with so much, Susannah told herself. She had no right to feel so bereft.

  “We love each other, Suze. How can it be wrong when we love each other?” He was frowning, not in anger but in an obvious effort to understand.

  And she couldn’t make him understand. If he didn’t know, nothing she could say would make it clear. She tried, anyway.

  “It’s wrong because we do love each other, Tye.” She lifted Danny’s carry-cot. She faced the man in front of her, and knew it would be for the last time.

  “I know some folks figure that without that piece of paper it’s free love. I think that piece of paper’s the freedom part. When you take those vows and sign that paper you’re throwing away all the conditions and all the safety nets—or you should be, if you go into it thinking that way.”

  She furrowed her brow thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s where Marvin went wrong. Maybe even with seven marriages under his belt, he never really felt like he was married at all. You’re not your daddy, Tye. You should have trusted yourself.”

  She looked away. “Paul Johnson’s going into Last Chance to pick up some feed. I believe I’ll hitch a ride into town with him and ask him to drop me and Danny off at the bus station. I’ve been away from Fox Hollow for too long. I think I’d like to show my son where his roots are.”

  “For God’s sake, Susannah!” The words sounded wrenched from him. “I’m not just going to stand here and watch you walk out of my—”

  Calmness fled. “That’s exactly what I want you to do, Tyler!” she said with shaky intensity. “I want you to let me go while I still can—because if I end up staying, if I end up living with you in California without a ring on my finger, everything you say you love about me will…will…” Her throat closed. She felt hot wetness on her cheeks.

  “Hell, Suze.” His arms were around her, his words murmured against her hair. “We can work this out somehow. You know we can. Let’s go inside and talk this over.”

  Just for a moment she let herself breathe in the scent of him. It would work out, she thought. It would work out because she wouldn’t be able to stay strong, it would work out because she wouldn’t be able to face losing him, it would work out because all he would have to do was ask her one more time and she’d give in.

  It would work out. And it would still be wrong.

  She took a deep breath. “Del needs your help with the horse.”

  He made an impatient gesture. “Forget that, honey. It’s more important that we—”

  “I know. But right now I think I’d like a few minutes to myself, Tye.” She forced a shaky smile to her lips, and met his unconvinced gaze. “It’s been a pretty unsettling week for me, and I’m not even sure I’ve taken it in yet that Scudder’s dead. Finding out on top of everything else that I jumped to the wrong conclusion about how it was going to be between you and me…” She swallowed. “Like I said, I need some time alone right now. We’ll talk when you get back to the house, okay?”

  Slippery slope, Granny Lacey, she thought, holding her breath as Tye hesitated. But it’s to save me from an even more slippery one.

  “Okay, Suze.” His expression was troubled. He looked at Danny, now blinking drowsily at them from his carry-cot. “You want me to give you a hand putting Dan the Man down for his nap first?”

  “I—I don’t think so, Tye.” Her voice sounded almost normal, Susannah noted, which was quite an achievement, given that she felt as if she was being torn in two. “He’s halfway there already.”

  He nodded. He jammed his hands irresolutely into his back pockets. He saw her watching him, and a corner of his mouth lifted wryly as he turned away and walked to the end of the porch.

  “I also told you I didn’t believe in miracles.” He stopped and looked at her as he spoke, his eyes so dark she couldn’t read the expression in them. “I do now, Suze. You’re my miracle,” he said quietly.

  She waited until he’d reached the yard and was heading toward the bunkhouse before she answered him, her response barely audible.

  “And you were my miracle, Tye.” Her vision blurred. In the shimmer of her tears she saw a tall, broad-shouldered man with hair the color of burnished gold. “You always will be,” she whispered.

  She couldn’t risk saying goodbye to Del, Susannah thought as she hurried into her bedroom and packed Danny’s essentials and her few belongings into the battered suitcase she’d been living out of for so long. It was rude, it was unforgivable, but she just couldn’t trust herself to carry it off without dissolving into tears.

  She would write him as soon as she could to let him know how much finding and getting to know her father’s friend had meant to her, she promised herself as she sped into the yard and saw Paul Johnson heading for his truck.

  To her relief, Johnson asked no awkward questions when she approached him with her request. With his usual economy of words he merely nodded, tossed her single suitcase easily into the back of the truck, and helped her get Danny securely into his infant seat. His keen gaze sharpened at the tearstains on her cheeks, and he grunted.

  “I take it you’re looking to put some miles between you and this place. You know there isn’t a bus out of Last Chance until tomorrow, don’t you, Miz Barrett?”

  Susannah stared at him, appalled. “Are you sure?” At his nod she fumbled in her purse for her pocketbook. “I’d better see if I have enough money to take a room for the night, then,” she said worriedly, but even as she spoke he started the vehicle.

  “No, you hang on to your money, ma’am. I can take you into Leetown and you can catch a Greyhound there. It’s about an hour’s drive, thoug
h, so you might as well get a little shut-eye if you can,” he added gruffly. “Looks to me like you could use some.”

  She didn’t need sleep, Susannah thought as she stared unseeingly out of the truck’s passenger-side window. Sleep meant dreams. What she really needed was to be able to shut off her brain completely for a time. Except at some point you’d have to turn it back on, she told herself dully. Too bad brainwashing doesn’t mean what a body might figure it did. That would be the way—take it to the laundry and get it back all spanking clean with the memories removed.

  “He let you down, did he?”

  With a start Susannah realized that the usually taciturn man beside her had spoken, and with an even greater start she saw that they were already passing Last Chance and turning down a sideroad smaller than the secondary highway they’d been on. She bit her lip, reluctant to discuss her hasty departure from the Double B, but feeling she owed the man who was making that departure possible some explanation.

  “Tye didn’t let me down. I let myself down,” she said softly. “I tried to become someone I’m not, and I guess that never works out.”

  Beside her Johnson pursed his lips, gearing the truck down and turning again on to a graveled road. He saw her slightly puzzled glance and shrugged.

  “It’s a trade-off, Miz Barrett. Twenty miles of good road or seven bad. This truck’s got heavy-duty everything, so I figured we’d cut some distance off the trip. But getting back to what you just said—I don’t know as I agree with you there.”

  He shook his head. “You can change yourself into anyone you want if you’ve got a strong enough reason for doing it. Kind of like that Skinwalker legend.”

  “Except Skinwalker’s reasons are evil ones,” she replied distractedly. The road had narrowed to little more than a trail, and ahead of them it took a steep incline. She turned to look at Danny in the seat behind, and saw he was fast asleep. “And despite what Alice Tahe says, no one really believes in shape-shifters and ghosts, do they?”

  “I do.” His craggy features briefly relaxed into a smile at her startled look. “Not literally,” he added laconically. “But the past can haunt a man, and if you want an example of that you don’t have to look further than Hawkins. I don’t know what he went through in ’Nam but he’s got his demons, that’s for sure.”

  Del’s story wasn’t hers to tell, Susannah thought, and even if it had been, she didn’t really feel much like talking. It was obvious that Johnson was making an effort to take her mind off her problems, but despite her earlier fantasy of erasing all memory of Tye, thinking about him was a way of holding on to him for a little longer.

  You could be holding on to him for real, a small voice in her head said. You could tell Johnson you’ve changed your mind and ask him to turn the truck around right now. Tye loves you, so, like he said, what difference does a piece of paper make to that love?

  Maybe to another woman it wouldn’t make any difference at all, Susannah told herself sadly. But to her it did. It had to. She couldn’t just pick and choose among her beliefs for the ones that didn’t inconvenience her.

  It sounded good, she thought a heartbeat later. Everything she’d just been going over in her mind sounded good, sounded convincing. It was all a lie.

  He’d wanted to talk it out. She’d had the chance to fight for what she believed in. But her pride had gotten in the way.

  You figured the man should have felt the same way you do about making it legal. You were afraid of having it out with him, and still not changing his mind. For heaven’s sake, Susannah Bird—the plain, unvarnished truth of the matter is you were too darn proud to fight for the love of your life!

  “…might have been different for Del if he’d had a pretty young wife to come home to like your daddy did. Still, I guess Daniel’s had more than a few of his own demons to battle over the years.”

  Johnson’s tone was musingly thoughtful, and for a moment what he’d said didn’t catch Susannah’s attention any more than the rest of what he’d obviously been saying had. Then it clicked, and she jerked her gaze to him.

  “What did you say?”

  He steered the truck around a deep rut before he answered. “Del. I figure things might have been easier for the man if he’d had someone—”

  “No.” Her body knew, Susannah thought faintly. She could feel the icy sweat trickling down her spine, and a giant hand seemed to be wrapping itself around her chest, making it hard to breathe. Her body knew, even if her mind wasn’t allowing her to accept it yet.

  “No, Mr. Johnson, not that. You said something about my father. You talked about him as if he was still alive.”

  “Alive and due to be released from West Virginia Correctional in a couple of days.” He brought the truck to a halt, and turned to her. “He’s been in prison all these years. I know he made your granny promise not to tell you he got sent up for murder.”

  “You’re wrong.” Her lips felt almost too numb to form the words. “Daniel Bird died fifteen years ago. He died when I was just a little girl, not long after my mama passed away.”

  Passed away from what? You told Tye it was from the fever, but Granny Lacey never actually came out and said so, did she? And you never pressed her on it…because even though you were only a little girl, you knew the terrible things that had been done to her, and how she had died. You knew that Lacey Bird, who couldn’t countenance the whitest of tiny white lies, would have lied a hundred times over to have saved her granddaughter from such a nightmarish truth.

  “Slippery slope, Granny Lacey,” she murmured unevenly. “And you slid down it willingly, just to shield me from the pain.”

  “No, Miz Bird, my brother died fifteen years ago,” the man beside her corrected her. “The same day the charges against him of raping and murdering Jessica Bird were thrown out on a technicality, Dwight walked out of court and straight into the bullet your daddy fired through his heart. I know, because I was in court that day too…except my conviction was upheld.”

  Now her mind had caught up with her body, Susannah thought fearfully. In horror she studied the craggy features, the triumphantly amused gaze of the man she’d called Paul Johnson. Those big hands—workingman’s hands, she’d thought once, workingman’s hands with heavy rawboned strength in the wrists—were killer’s hands. She fixed her eyes on the horsehair bracelet encircling one of them, because she didn’t want to watch his face when he answered her.

  “Who are you?” she whispered hoarsely.

  Her body knew. Her mind knew. But she still needed to hear him say it.

  “Jasper Scudder, Miz Susannah Bird.” His smile grew. “And I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long, long time.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “That should do you for today,” Tye grunted, stepping away from the gelding. Peeling a pair of wash-leather gloves from his hands, he slapped them against his thigh to remove the dust before tucking them into a back pocket.

  “Look at the marks on that hind quarter there,” Del muttered in disgust. “I’ve let things go around here these past few months, dammit. Time was when nothing happened on this ranch that I didn’t know about.”

  “Yeah, you’re slacking off, old man,” Tye said dryly. “You think it might have something to do with the fact that you’ve been a little preoccupied lately with trying to find out who was trying to shut the Double B down?”

  “Maybe.” Del squinted at the gelding. “But it chafes at me that I didn’t see what Bradley was. I should be thinking of turning this place over to a younger man one of these days, Tye. You interested?”

  His question was offhandedly casual, Tye noted, but it still put him in the position of having to turn his former mentor down. He cleared his throat.

  “I don’t think so, Del.” He rubbed a thumb along his jawline. “I’ve got as much as I can handle with the bodyguard business out in California. Security’s pretty lucrative nowadays.”

  “So you’re getting rich, big deal.” Del raised an eyebrow. “You’re
not happy, Adams, and I know it. You practically jumped at the chance to come back here when I called to ask for your help.”

  “I wasn’t happy, no,” Tye retorted shortly. “But now I’ve got a shot at it.”

  “A shot at it?” Del’s gaze narrowed. “With Susannah? For God’s sake, I thought you had a sure thing going there, boy, not just a shot at it. How’d you manage to blow it?”

  And this was the man who figured he was out of touch with what was going on around him, Tye thought with brief irritation. He resisted the urge to tell Hawkins to butt out.

  “We had a little misunderstanding a few minutes ago. I’ve got some fences to mend with her when I get back to the house.”

  “She figured marriage. You wanted to shack up with her. Was that the misunderstanding?” Del’s phrasing was crudely blunt, and it touched off a spark in Tye.

  “Back the hell away from that one, Hawkins, or so help me I’ll—” He stopped, not wanting to complete the threat. Del’s smile was hard.

  “You’ll what, California? Kick my ass? You tried to, once, and you never even landed a single punch, remember?”

  For a long moment the two men stared at each other. Then Tye felt the anger inside him deflate. He managed a lopsided grin.

  “Yeah, Susannah figured marriage, and I…” He lifted his shoulders. “Well, I just don’t see myself as the marrying kind, Del. You know that.”

  “I know you’ve always said you didn’t believe in the institution.” Del’s tone was quieter, too. “That from everything you’d seen it was just a business contract, and like any contract, made to be broken. That doesn’t really explain why you wouldn’t go through with it just to please her if that’s what she had her heart set on.” He frowned. “Unless you don’t love her. Is that it?”

  “Love her?” A vision of the way she’d looked two nights ago flashed through Tye’s mind—wet hair, wet lips, the silk robe he’d given her slipping from creamy skin. He bit back a groan. “That little lady’s got my heart for good,” he said huskily. “She knows she has. That’s why I don’t understand why the rest of it matters a damn.”

 

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