Wild Texas Flame

by Janis Reams Hudson

  “What dif—”

  “Sunny!”

  “I told him no!”

  Ash let go of her arm and sagged into the chair. After taking a deep breath, he asked, “What did he say?”

  “He asked me to think about it. I said I would, but that I wouldn’t change my mind. He didn’t seem to think I can manage the ranch, even when I told him he’d get his money. But I can manage, Ash. He will get his money.”

  “It’s not the money he’s after, Sunny, it’s the ranch. You’ve got to understand that.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “I told you how he tried to call in my father’s loan?”

  She nodded.

  “We went to see him that day to tell him we had the money to pay it off. Baxter went crazy. He didn’t want the loan paid off, he wanted the ranch.”

  “But if that’s true,” she said, “why did he turn around and sell it to my father? Why not just keep it for himself if he wanted it so bad?”

  “I’ve been wondering that same thing. When did your father buy it from him?”

  Sunny wiped her sweating palms on her apron and started pacing. “Let’s see. We came to town right after your trial. I think Daddy made the arrangements with the bank right after you went…away.”

  He said something under his breath that she didn’t quite catch. It sounded like a curse. Then, in a harsh voice, “I didn’t ‘go away,’ Sunny. I went to prison.”

  She whirled to face him. “Why do you do that?” she demanded.

  “Do what?”

  “Constantly remind me of what you’ve done, where you’ve been.”

  “Because,” he said firmly, catching her gaze so she couldn’t look away. His jaw stuck out in determination. His gaze lowered to her lips, reminding her of the kisses they shared and making her breath catch. “Sometimes I think you forget.”

  “You mean like last night?”

  “Last night we both forgot. I won’t let it happen again. And I won’t let you put yourself in danger again for something as stupid as a trunk,” he added.

  She had to move, had to pull away from those eyes before she ended up doing something dumb like throwing herself in his lap. She wanted to do just that. She wanted to feel his strong, warm arms around her, wanted to hear his heart race the way hers was doing, wanted to feel his lips, taste them.

  Instead, she stepped away and knelt before the trunk. “You won’t say it’s stupid when you see what’s inside.” After unbuckling the straps, she raised the lid. It creaked.

  She pulled out a bundled quilt, sat on the floor, and opened the quilt in her lap. Inside was a beautiful wall clock. “Does this look familiar?” she asked him.

  Ash frowned. “You risked being burned to a crisp for a damn clock?”

  She rolled her eyes in disgust and set the clock carefully on the floor next to her. Then she pulled out another, smaller quilt. When she unfolded it she ran a loving hand over an intricately designed silver hand mirror, with a matching comb and brush.

  She heard Ash gasp. “That looks like…one my mother used to have.”

  She smiled at him. “It is the one your mother used to have. And so is the clock, along with everything else in here. I’m sorry I couldn’t save anything else, but I thought you might want—”

  “You went into that burning barn to save my mother’s things? Sunny, why?”

  She looked down and stroked a raised silver rose on the back of the mirror, a little hurt by his question. “I thought you’d be pleased.”

  The floor creaked as he rolled his chair next to her. Warm, callused fingers lifted her chin until she was forced to look at him.

  “Sunny, I don’t know what to say. Of course I’m pleased. The things in this trunk, the things you risked your life to save for me, are all I have of my family other than memories. But dammit, Sunny, you shouldn’t want to please me. You shouldn’t even be having anything to do with a man like me.”

  She stared at him in amazement. “Why would you say something like that?”

  He released her chin and swore under his breath again. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? For God’s sake, I just spent five years in prison for shooting a man in the back!”

  For one brief instant Sunny’s muscles locked in place. Then, feeling like she’d been shot from a sling, she scrambled to set the quilt and its contents aside. She rose to her knees and gripped his hands. He tried to pull free, but she wouldn’t let go. “You didn’t do it, did you?” she said urgently. “It was all some kind of terrible mistake. I know it was. Tell me you didn’t really shoot him in the back. You didn’t do it, did you!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  For a minute Ash felt he might drown in those deep golden eyes gazing up at him so earnestly. Right then he knew he could tell her anything, and she’d believe him. God, what had he ever done to deserve such faith?

  But he couldn’t lie to her. Not about this. She had to know. Then maybe she would shut him out and he wouldn’t feel so drawn to her.

  He let his hands go slack in hers and answered, “Yes. I shot Ian Baxter in the back.”

  Her cry of denial cut him like a knife. He flinched from the pain of it.

  “Why?” she cried. “Oh, Ash, why?”

  He jerked his hands free and pushed his chair away from her. “It doesn’t make any difference why I did it. I did it. That’s all there is.”

  “‘It doesn’t make any difference,’“ she mimicked, her hands on her hips. “Of course it makes a difference. What did you do, get up one morning and say, ‘I think I’ll ride over and shoot Ian Baxter in the back, Dad. Wanna come along?’“

  He jerked one wheel and tried to turn his chair around. This was one conversation he didn’t want any part of. He’d told the truth five years ago, and no one had believed him. There had been too many others who told a different story. He didn’t expect she’d believe him anymore than the rest of the town had.

  Just when he thought he’d made good his escape from the parlor his wheelchair jerked to a halt, nearly tossing him to the floor.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” she said behind him. “You’re not leaving this room until you tell me what happened that day, Ash McCord.”

  She pulled his chair back into the parlor then stood in front of him trying, he guessed, to look intimidating. It might have worked, if she didn’t look so damned adorable. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Why did you want to know my answer to Baxter’s proposal?”

  Ah, hell. He’d wanted to know because, irrational though it was, he’d felt he had a right to know. Was that what she was feeling now? He hoped not. He didn’t want her to feel the gut-wrenching yearning he experienced whenever he so much as thought about her.

  But he didn’t want to fight with her. “All right, I’ll tell you what happened. I’ll tell you the truth, which is what I told the sheriff. He didn’t believe me. Maybe you won’t either. But if you do, maybe you’ll see I’m right about Baxter.”

  He motioned for her to sit down. She might be a lovely sight to look up to, but he’d been forced for weeks to look up at people, and he didn’t like it. It reminded him too much of the overseers when he’d been hired out as convict labor around Huntsville, and prison guards when he hadn’t.

  “I told you about Baxter trying to foreclose on us, about all the ‘accidents’ that started—the stampede being the worst one.”

  She nodded.

  The words came hard for him, dredging up painful memories, but he went on. “My father decided he’d had enough. He went to a friend in San Antonio and arranged to borrow the money to pay off Baxter. That’s why we rode to his ranch that day—to pay off the loan. We went to the bank first, but Joe Clark said—”

  “Joe Clark?”

  “Joe Clark Johnston, Baxter’s assistant at the bank. He said Baxter was home, so we rode out to the Bar B. I took care of the horses while Dad went into the house to give Baxter the money. When I went to join them, I heard them arguing before I go
t through the door. I got to the parlor just as Baxter drew his gun and fired.”

  He forced his eyes to stay open, when he wanted to squeeze them shut. But shutting them wouldn’t make the pictures in his head, pictures of that day, go away.

  “Dad took it in the chest and went down. God, I’ll never forget the look on his face. Pain. Surprise.”

  Ash shook his head to dispel the image. It wouldn’t go. “Baxter aimed again. I drew and fired. It was all I could do. I hit him in the lower back.”

  He paused, expecting some sort of reaction from Sunny and getting nothing.

  “By then,” he went on, “Maria had run in from the kitchen. She took one look and started waving her arms and running around the room. If she could have screamed, she would have. I rushed to Dad, but he was already dead. While I was bent over him someone hit me from behind. When I came to I was tied up and gagged and Gus stood looming over me. They told the sheriff that Dad and I came in shooting, that Dad drew first.”

  He watched Sunny play with the edge of her apron, wondering when she’d speak, what she would say. Her eyes followed her fingers as they pleated, smoothed, then pleated her apron. “Could he have?” she asked.

  “Could who have what?”

  “Could your father have…drawn first?”

  She looked at him then, and he could tell the question was hard for her. But no harder than it was for him. He could feel the tension, the bitter hatred coiling in his gut at reliving that day.

  “No,” he answered. “He’d joked before he went inside that the temptation was too great. He unstrapped his pistol and left it hanging on his saddle horn, which is where it was when I went inside later. When I came to after the shooting, it was strapped around his waist and the gun was in his hand.”

  “The money?”

  “Gone.”

  She closed her eyes and swallowed. When she opened them, tears overflowed and ran down her cheeks. “Oh, Ash.” She slid from the chair and knelt in front of him, where she buried her face against his knees. “Oh, Ash, how horrible.”

  He wanted to touch her, to bury his fingers in her rich golden hair. Instead he clenched his fists against the armrests. “I don’t want your tears, Sunny, I—”

  “I’m sorry.” She rubbed her cheeks against his pants and looked up at him, her nose and eyes red. “But you can’t expect me to learn that you just spent five years of your life in prison for trying to save your father’s life, and not cry.”

  She believed him! With the lone exception of Ella, not one single person had believed him five years ago.

  Sunny!

  He felt the burning coil of hatred and frustration in his gut ease somewhat. “I just wanted you to know what kind of man Ian Baxter really is. I don’t know why he wants this ranch, but he does. He’ll stop at nothing to get it.”

  She sat back on her heels and shook her head.

  His heart sank. “You don’t believe me.”

  “Of course I believe you. You have no reason to lie to me. You certainly don’t want my sympathy—”

  “You got that right.”

  “And you want me to think the worst of you. That’s why you keep throwing your prison record up in my face. So why would you try to convince me you’re innocent if it’s not the truth? And I do believe you, Ash.”

  “But?”

  She shook her head again, frowning. “Why did he turn right around and sell the ranch to my father?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. You say your family moved here right after my trial.”

  She nodded.

  “My guess is Joe Clark handled the sale of the ranch while Baxter was back East seeing some specialist. Before I left for Huntsville I heard he didn’t trust Doctor Sneed and wanted another opinion. I know he left town before I did. He probably didn’t know the ranch was sold until he came home.”

  “But he already had the Bar B. What would he want with another ranch?”

  “That I don’t know. I only know he wants it. Bad enough to do whatever it takes, as long as he isn’t blamed for it.”

  A week later Doctor Sneed came to the ranch looking tired and worn from his fight against the typhoid in the next county. But he was thrilled with Ash’s progress. He’d been so confident of his patient’s recovery that he’d brought a pair of crutches to help Ash get on his feet again.

  There was no slowing Ash down after that. Sunny worried that he would overdo and hurt himself, but after one disastrous attempt to get him to take it easy, when he accused her of not wanting him to get well, she kept her mouth shut.

  For Sunny, it felt good having him in the house, a man for her to do for, to fuss over. It was like having a complete family. She had hoped that things would be better—easier—between her and Ash after that day he’d told her about the shooting, his father’s death.

  But if Ash had thrown up barriers to their becoming better friends—or more—before, they were nothing to the walls he kept between them now. He wouldn’t let her help him in any way, wouldn’t let her work on his legs, wouldn’t even let her watch him walk with his crutches. All she could do was listen to the thuds and thumps and shuffles coming from behind his closed door. The only times he came out were for meals, and even then, he barely spoke unless the girls were present.

  Sunny smiled grimly to herself. He’d have a hard time doing that tonight. As soon as he sat down to dinner and laid his crutches on the floor, she picked them up and moved them out of his reach. She was tired of letting him keep her at arm’s length. She wanted to talk to him, and she wasn’t going to let him get away until she’d had her chance.

  As soon as the girls were finished eating, she refilled Ash’s coffee cup. “You girls go on to your rooms. I believe I heard something about school work?”

  “What about the dishes?” Katy asked.

  “I’ll get them tonight.”

  Katy hesitated.

  “Go on,” Sunny said.

  By the time the girls left the room Ash was looking for his crutches.

  “I’ll carry them clear outside if you don’t sit still and talk to me,” she threatened.

  He gave her a wary look. “Why?”

  “Because you’re avoiding me, and I’d like to know why.”

  “Avoiding you?” He smirked. “Kinda hard to do that in a house this small.”

  “It is, but you certainly manage. What I’d like to know is why.”

  He reached for his coffee. “You know why.”

  “No, I don’t. I thought…that is, you seemed to…like me. For a while, anyway.”

  He glanced sharply at her, then away. A muscle in his jaw flexed.

  What was that look supposed to mean? “Talk to me, Ash,” she said. “We were…well, I thought we were getting…close. The night of the fire…” She hated the uncertainty she heard in her own voice. Baring one’s feelings wasn’t easy. But the feelings she had for him were growing stronger and more complex by the day. She had to express them somehow or burst from the pressure. “The night of the fire,” she said again, “you—”

  “I made a mistake that night. It shouldn’t have happened, and it won’t happen again.”

  She looked at his hard face and her stomach sank. “Why?”

  “After all you know about me, I can’t believe you’d even ask.”

  “All I know about you? I know you’re innocent.”

  “My guilt or innocence has nothing to do with it.” His hands clutched the coffee mug until she thought it would shatter. “Nobody cares if I’m innocent. All they care about,” he said heatedly, flinging an arm in the general direction of town, “is that Ian Baxter is in a wheelchair and I just spent five years in prison for putting him there. No one cares why or how.”

  “I care!”

  “You shouldn’t, damn it! I came back to town for one reason only, and that was to try to clear my name. Whether I do or whether I don’t, I won’t stay around long. I’ll always be an ex-convict and a back-shooter to the people of this county. I’ll nev
er be accepted, and neither will you if they associate you with me.”

  His last few words lit a flame of hope in her heart that threatened to burst out of control. She lowered her eyes so he wouldn’t see. “So all this distance you’ve placed between us since the fire, it’s to protect me?”

  “If that’s how you want to look at it.”

  She looked at him then, and couldn’t fight the smile that came out. “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “You don’t think what?”

  “Oh, I think you’re trying to protect me, but that’s not the only reason you keep pushing me away, is it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She laughed as she rose from the table and started carrying dishes to the shelf where the dishpan sat. There, she glanced at him over her shoulder, still smiling. “I think you’re trying to protect yourself.”

  He frowned at her. “How do you figure that? Protect myself from what?”

  With a boldness that almost shocked her, she laughed again. “From me.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  With all the men away from the house for the morning, Ash relished the chance to get outdoors. The porch steps were tricky, but there were only two of them and he made it down without falling. Barely.

  That’s why he’d waited until no one was around. It was bad enough, the few glimpses he was forced to allow Sunny and the girls. But he’d be damned if he’d let her men or anyone else see him fumble with his crutches, watch him fight for every little inch of ground his feet crossed. It was humiliating.

  Even more difficult to accept was how adept Sunny was at reading him.

  I think you’re trying to protect yourself…from me.

  He shuddered. She didn’t understand. She had no idea of the trouble, the pain he could cause her. He could admit to himself how much he wanted her, but he’d never admit it to her or anyone else. It was pointless, because nothing could ever come of it. The sooner he got away from this house and her, the better off they’d both be.

  The minute his legs were strong enough to carry him on horseback, he’d ride back to town.