by Lynde Lakes
Matt had just stuck his cell phone back in his jeans when it rang. “Matt, it’s Luke.” His younger brother sounded sober—and scared.
The skin on Matt’s neck prickled. Luke wasn’t one to scare easily. “Luke, what—”
“Help me, Matt. I need your help.”
Matt shook his head, even though his baby brother couldn’t see the movement. “You gotta stay and finish the program.”
“The hell with the program! Parker’s dead!”
Pain shot through Matt. He slid down the post he was leaning against and sank to his haunches. “Is this a sick joke—to get back at me?” Matt could barely form the words, and they came out ragged, husky.
Luke began to weep. He never cried, even when Parker had slammed his finger in the truck door when he was ten. “The sheriff’s here. He thinks I killed my own brother. My own—” Luke’s voice broke. “Matt, you gotta help me!”
Matt’s throat ached, and nausea rose from his gut. A black fog of grief washed over him.
“Matt? Matt!”
He drew in a shaky breath and reached down into a deep calm place, the center where he went for strength to keep from losing control. “Where are you?”
“The ranch.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t—Oh, God, Matt…”
Luke was losing it. Matt could hear his brother’s control crumbling. “Luke! Calm down and tell me what happened.”
“When Parker and me sobered up and found our butts at Lone Star Retreat, we were mad as hell. We played along for a day. Then with Webb’s help, we broke out and hightailed it back to the ranch.”
“Webb! That guy’s bad news, Luke.” Matt had sized him up as trouble the moment the lowlife came around asking for a job.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Luke said. “Webb’s the dirty polecat who killed Parker. I tried to tell the sheriff that, but he…he won’t listen!”
“You saw Webb do it?”
“No. But when we got back home, he offered Parker some kind of deal that just didn’t sit right with him.”
“What do you mean? What kind of deal?” Suspicion coiled around Matt like a lariat.
“They walked down the road a piece, out of earshot. All I caught was your name and something about the ranch. Parker started cussin’ and kicked Webb off the ranch. Webb said he’d be sorry as hell.”
That confirmed it. Matt was certain now that he’d been marked for murder, and Webb wanted Parker to do it. Molly had been right. Ramon was probably in on it too. “What’s the sheriff got against you?”
“It was my gun that killed Parker, Matt! My gun!” Luke was sobbing now, but managed to finish. “Him and me, we rode out to ol’ windmill Carlita with the Morales sisters to do a little neckin’ and drinkin’. We all got drunk, and the girls left mad. Can’t remember why. Then I passed out. When I came to, Parker was dead, and my gun was in my hand.”
“Damn it, Luke! Can’t you see it’s the drinking that gets you into these messes?”
“I didn’t do it, Matt. I swear I didn’t!”
Matt heaved a sigh. “I know, Luke. I know you wouldn’t kill your own brother.” Any more than Parker would kill him. The whole thing was a nightmare. “Are you sure Parker’s dead? I mean, maybe he’s just wounded or—”
“He’s dead, Matt. Parker’s gone. And you gotta help me. Webb might kill me, too. He’s a bad dude, and I know too much now. I overheard him and his pilot talkin’. Webb said the storm had shifted, and they had to handle the golden squaller with care. At the time, their words meant nothin’ to me. But after thinkin’ about it, I got worried. I told Parker what I heard, and he said it was nothin’. That with Paulo being a pilot and all, it was probably just weather talk.”
Matt didn’t like the sound of the men’s conversation either. “What do you think they were talking about?”
“I figured squaller meant baby. You know, ’cause babies cry. Golden might be like the goose that laid the golden egg. Hell, I don’t know. I’m just guessin’. Anyway, there’s more. Some guy named Del Fuego is in the mix. I don’t know for a fact, but I think he’s after little Sara Jane.”
Matt felt his stomach muscles contract. He clutched the cell phone so hard he heard the plastic cover crack. “They are, but there’s more to it. But back to you—”
“Come home, Matt. They’ll railroad me if you don’t.”
“First you need an attorney. I’ll get one for you. Keep your mouth shut until he gets there. You hear me? Don’t say anything. Lives may depend on it, Luke.”
After his brother promised not to talk to anyone but a lawyer, Matt called a big-shot Dallas attorney with a never-lose reputation. With pressure building in his chest, he made the arrangements and hung up with guilt pounding through his blood. Indirectly, by not leveling with Molly, he’d been responsible for bringing trouble to the ranch. He’d failed Molly, his brothers, his parents…
As if Parker’s death wasn’t enough, this news could kill Dad. Matt got his dad’s doctor on the line and told him about Parker. “I want to get Dad sedated before I tell him about my brother. I want to avoid another heart attack.” The doctor agreed that sedation was an advisable precaution.
Once everything was arranged, Matt, his knees weak, leaned against the railing. The desperation in Luke’s voice had been unmistakable. Matt closed his eyes. It seemed the sheriff and his men were taking the easy way out. Yet, how could he fault them when his brother admitted to owning the smoking gun?
Matt tightened his jaw. It was up to him to prove Luke’s innocence and someone else’s guilt—probably Webb or Paulo. And, sadly, he had to arrange for Parker’s funeral. To do those things, he had to go home. But with the heightened danger at the ranch, he couldn’t take Molly and the baby with him. And he couldn’t leave them. Without him, they were dead.
Matt moaned low in his throat. Dead. Parker was dead. The words kept echoing in his mind. God, he needed to get away. But who would protect Molly and the baby? Cupping his hands and shading his eyes, Matt looked through the general store window at the women. Surrounded by Wanda, Suzy, and Tita jiggling Sara Jane, Molly was trying on a straw hat with yellow flowers on it. She made an adorable funny face and struck an exaggerated pose. Everyone laughed, even Roberto.
Molly and the baby were safe surrounded by people who loved them. Del Fuego’s men couldn’t know they were in Mitchell’s Corner. If he didn’t take a break from his bodyguard watch long enough to go somewhere alone to lick his wounds and try to rein in the control he felt slipping away, he wouldn’t be any good to anyone.
Parker is dead. The echo grew louder. Parker is dead. He walked faster, trying to escape the voice in his head. Where should I go? It didn’t matter. Just away. He passed a liquor store. Then, with a wide, determined stride, he reversed direction, marched inside, and bought a quart of bourbon. He stared at the dark liquid, imaging the burn as it slid down his throat. He threw a wad of bills down on the counter. Without waiting for change, he grabbed the bottle by its neck and charged down the dirt street, kicking up dust. When he reached the edge of town, he kept going, breaking into a crazed run, as though the demons of hell were on his trail. Gravel crunched under his boots as loud as thunder.
The sun, a simmering blot of white in the faded blue sky, pounded down on him, heating the bottle within his grasp, branding his fingers. Breath scorched his lungs, but he couldn’t stop running. He tripped over tumbleweeds and large stones. A small brown rabbit scurried across his path. Run bastard run.
With his pulse pounding in his ears, he gulped air pungent with stinking scrub brush. The land was rougher now, more brush and boulders the size of a Brahma bull. Keep going. Keep going. He couldn’t outrun his grief, yet he staggered on, scrambling over stones, going farther into the parched desert and farther away from people, their laughter, while wishing the dry crusty earth would open up and swallow him whole and put him out of his misery. He sucked in hot dry air in agonizing gulps.
Out of brea
th and plagued by muscle spasms in his legs, he dropped to his knees in the shadow of a semicircle of giant boulders and scraggly mesquite trees. Panting, he stared at the bottle of bourbon. He loathed the damned painkiller in his hand—loathed that he had a damned good excuse to drink it.
He set the bottle down on a small table rock in front of him and stared at the tea-colored liquid gleaming in the sunshine whiskey. Seized with a geyser of painful emotion, he stood and picked up a boulder the size of a bowling ball and aimed at the bottle. A direct hit would smash the bottle to smithereens. He turned and hurled it in the opposite direction. Hurling another and another, he drained his strength. Hurling. Hurling.
Spent, he sank down beneath the shade of a mesquite tree and glared at the whiskey—devil’s brew, they called it. Damn. Damn. Damn. In FBI training school, he’d learned to think on his feet, keep the upper hand, and control things as they came. His throat tightened. Nothing he’d learned had prepared him for the gut ripping pain of losing Parker. They’d had their differences, but Parker was his big brother. And Parker was gone.
****
Molly had seen Matt’s reflection, had seen him turn and run like a mad man. Something was very wrong. She had to find him. Help him. Molly dug her knees into White Queen’s flanks the way Matt had taught her. The horse she had borrowed settled into a smooth gait and headed in the direction she’d last seen Matt. She wanted to gallop, but she didn’t know the horse and good sense won out over urgency. She clenched the reins. What was that cowboy thinking? What if she couldn’t find Matt? She said a little prayer.
There was a cluster of boulders and acres of prickly flatland. And that was it for miles around. She shouted Matt’s name and listened intently for an answer, but the only sounds she heard were the clopping hooves of her borrowed horse and the gusting wind. She pressed on.
Up ahead, on a rise of land, under the shade of a giant mushroom-shaped boulder, Matt sat beneath the overhang, staring at a bottle of whiskey glistening in the sun. Molly let out a sigh of relief and jerked on the reins. “Matt!”
He looked up, his face grim under the shadow of his black Stetson. “What the hell—”
“That’s my line,” she shot back. “What’s the deal with the whiskey and the madman act?”
Ignoring her question, he jumped to his feet and rushed toward her. Under that sweat-dampened beige chambray shirt, she could imagine his washboard stomach and well-defined biceps. Before he reached her, she dismounted and flipped the reins around a branch of a gnarled mesquite tree. Matt grasped her arms roughly. “That hurts,” she said, then shook his hands loose from her arms.
“What are you doing out here alone?” he asked, his voice husky with spent and unspent emotion.
“I might ask you the same thing. What’s going on?”
He drew her out of the searing heat into the shelter and shade of the boulders and pulled her down beside him. She watched as he pulled the hat from his head, raked shaking fingers through his hair, and leaned his head back against the rock. She’d never seen him like this—in such agony.
She drew up her legs and wrapped her arms around them. “Matt, I saw you looking at me through the store window. You looked like hell. I thought you might need a friend.”
“Where’s Sara Jane?”
“She’s with Tita and Roberto.”
“How did you find me?” His words rolled out in a deep, masculine rumble and sounded almost lost.
She laughed, hoping to make him smile. “In a place the size of Mitchell’s Corner, a man like you stands out.” He’d stand out anywhere. “I checked the stores one by one. Nothing. Then, as I left the barbershop, I saw you. You tore out of that liquor store like demons were after you.”
He laughed, but there was no humor in his eyes. “They were.” He gestured with his head toward the horse. “Whose mare?”
“Belongs to Jasper Moore.”
“Who?”
“Just a sweet old guy. That’s White Queen. He was tying her to a hitching post. At first, he refused to help me, but Buck came along then. He knew Jasper, so…”
She met Matt’s gaze. “Okay, it’s your turn, cowboy. What’s wrong?”
Matt remained silent, his profile looking chiseled in rock as hard as the boulders sheltering them from the blistering sun. The hot breeze lashed his features, ruffled his inky hair. She waited, impatient to know what had sent him running wildly. But instinct told her to give him whatever time he needed. Silence stretched between them.
Matt’s long-fingered hands drew her attention. They were callused, strong looking. Steady. He picked up a thick mesquite twig and scraped a deep line in the crusty dirt. The twig snapped under the pressure. “Parker’s dead.” Matt’s voice broke. “Murdered.”
A jolt of pain shot through Molly. “Oh, Matt, no.” She put her arms around him, stroked his back. “I’m so sorry.”
They clung to one another, Matt stiff in her arms, as though holding in the pain. She felt his hot, ragged breath in her hair. He withdrew from her embrace too quickly, and his gaze fell away. She settled back down beside him, fighting unreasonable hurt feelings.
Then it hit her. “Was Parker murdered at Lone Star?” It had been at her urging that Matt had sent his brothers to the alcohol abuse center. If she were responsible—
“No.” He gave a bitter laugh. “If he’d stayed there, he might still be alive.” Matt paused as though gathering strength. “It gets worse. Luke’s charged with his murder.”
She closed her eyes, imagining Matt’s anguish, hurting for him. She touched his hand, squeezed it. When he didn’t respond, she removed her hand. She cleared her throat, but it took a second time before the words would come out. “Any clues pointing to the real killer?”
“You didn’t ask if Luke did it.” Matt’s body language remained rigid, and his voice held its hard edge, but his eyes softened a fraction.
“Luke’s a scrapper and a lover boy,” she said, keeping her voice soft. “But not a killer. Any ideas?”
“Luke thinks Webb did it. Luke heard some things.”
“What kind of things?”
Matt stared straight ahead, his features stony, chiseled. “The point is Webb and Paulo have been seen around the ranch again, so they had the opportunity.”
Molly’s stomach knotted. Parker’s murder and Luke’s arrest changed everything. Matt was going back. She knew it. He had to help with the murder investigation and arrange the funeral. She wanted to go with him, help him through this bad time, but she couldn’t take Sara Jane to a place where murderers were lurking around. Molly squared her shoulders. “Luke must be terrified there alone. When are you leaving?”
A muscle in Matt’s jaw twitched. “Molly, I’m caught in a tug-of-war, and I’m about to be pulled apart.” He raked his hair back from his face. “I’m needed at the ranch, but I can’t leave you and Sara Jane.” But he would. Blood was thicker than—
“Luke will need a good lawyer,” she said.
“I’ve already called one.”
“Have you told your folks?” Molly didn’t want to think about him leaving. She’d known it was bound to happen, just not so soon.
“I called their doctor. Because of my dad’s heart problems, I needed to get him sedated first.”
Admiration for him welled up in Molly’s heart. Before Matt had allowed himself to give in to his own rage and pain and ran off like a madman, he’d handled things well. He was a strong man, a considerate man, and she loved him with all her heart.
She stared at the unopened bottle of whiskey. “I’d like to get back to Sara Jane. Will you come with me?”
He stared at her for a long moment, then nodded and entwined his fingers with hers.
****
On the bus ride back to Buck’s ranch, Matt sat in the back with Buck and explained what was going on. “I need backup protection for Molly and the baby.”
Buck offered four of his most trusted vaqueros as bodyguards, two for daylight hours and two to watch the
house at night. He introduced Matt to the men when they returned, and Matt hired them on the spot. The nighttime crew was to start immediately.
He returned to the room he shared with Molly, his mind now free to think of his other problems. He helped Molly feed and bathe Sara Jane, then together they tucked the baby in.
He belonged here with them. The thought of leaving was killing him. Matt paced a dozen steps, then opened a window. Sweet night smells of mesquite and the range drifted inside. He stood there a few moments staring out at the star-studded sky.
He felt Molly watching him. “I’m stiff from the long bus ride,” he said. “I’m going for a walk, but you’ll be safe. I hired a couple of Buck’s most trusted vaqueros to keep an eye on the house. They won’t let any unauthorized people near the place.”
“So that’s what you and Buck were conspiring about.” Looking thoughtful, she folded her arms and leaned against the doorjamb. “Want some company? I’ll ask Tita to sit with Sara Jane.”
He needed to be alone, needed to sort things out. He almost shook his head.
“I have something to tell you,” she said with urgency in her tone.
He forced a grin. “After a declaration like that, how could I turn you down?”
Fifteen minutes later, under a black velvet sky strewn with glittering stars, they strolled toward the lighted fountain. The shimmering emerald waters were a sharp contrast to the darkened arena. “When I saw you on that bull,” Molly said, “my heart almost stopped. Weren’t you afraid?” He was grateful that she’d steered clear of talk about Parker or Luke.
“Nah. Couldn’t mount the critter if I were worried about him, or about getting hurt. Can’t be afraid of life.”
“How about losing your life?” she asked softly.
He suspected they weren’t talking about bulls anymore.
The moon slipped from behind a cloud, and the ranch seemed to glisten in the silvery light. He gave Molly a little squeeze. “Gotta be optimistic.”
