by Sylvie Kurtz
FROM HIS PERCH atop the pasture fence, Kevin scanned the north sky and found Nina’s midnight star. The mother star. When you pray, Nina had told him, it’s important to still the noise in your mind and listen.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever learned the right way to pray, but he liked the deep of the night when the rest of the world was sleeping and he didn’t dare. He could listen to the rhythms of nature—the grass crinkling, the stomp of a hoof, the high-pitched whine of mosquitoes. Tonight, the full strawberry moon cast heavy shadows and silvered the backs of the five horses grazing serenely. He could hear the breeze puff through the branches of the oaks, tinkling the leaves like wind chimes. If he put his feet on the grass, he could feel the slow shift of the earth beneath them, the ancient language of time.
In this quiet symphony of nature, his soul found a measure of peace.
He missed Nina, missed her wisdom, her understanding…her unconditional love. In his pocket, he sought the bone feather she’d carved for him. With his thumb, he worried the ridges.
I’m failing, Grandmother.
Pah! Your greatest failing is your inability to see what’s in front of your own nose.
She’s going to lose the horses. If not because of Bancroft, then because of whatever illness plagued them. He’d sensed something off in them from the moment he’d seen them. Now, the symptoms were worsening. Ellen had noticed, too, and the changes worried her. She’s going to get hurt.
Or maybe she’ll find her strength.
He wished he could believe that.
Everything has a purpose, Nina’s remembered voice assured him.
No, not everything. Not senseless flashes of temper that stole other people’s dreams.
He shifted restlessly on the fence. Luci, Pudge and C.C. roamed, eating a bite here, a bite there, swishing their tails lazily like normal horses. Apollo and Perseus did more standing than grazing. Each step seemed to expend more energy than eating gained them.
They were young. Their injuries were healing nicely. Why were they behaving like horses two steps from the grave?
But his mind couldn’t wrap itself around the problem. Something in the air suddenly carried a new inflection, as if distant notes were modulating into a song. They pierced through him, starting a hum low in his belly. The glow of it shimmered to his heart long before the dog at his feet sensed the shift in atmosphere. Blue lifted his head, saw no cause to worry at Ellen’s approach, then went back to his rabbit-chasing dreams.
What did the dog know? The want was so fierce, Kevin didn’t know how much longer he could contain it. Her moonflower scent drifted to him on the breeze. The soft unhurried sound of her feet on the earth made a mockery of his racing pulse. He gritted his teeth against the hard surge of arousal.
Ellen and his feelings for her were more of a problem than anything Bancroft and his misplaced pride could dish out.
She placed both forearms on the top rail of the fence and leaned her chin on her crossed hands. She counted the horses and noted their condition. The hum inside him became a fever pitch.
He’d known from the second he saw her in the sheriff’s office that he was lost. He’d never forgotten her—though he’d tried. She’d been part of his dreams, part of his nightmares, since he could remember. He could never rid his system of her. She was a part of him as surely as his blood.
How could one woman hold so much power over him?
The lunar light bleached her skin and hair of color and accentuated the silver in her gray-green eyes. She was tall—almost as tall as he. She could look him in the eye. But she cast a slim shadow that seemed as frail as the lace of cloud skimming over the moon. And like those lacy clouds, it seemed all it would take to tatter that shadow and make it disappear was a breath of breeze.
Yet, as strong as he was, all it took was a whiff of her moonflower to send his senses in a spin. And when that radarlike hum started inside him, riddling his gut with a thousand tiny knots, he had no control over the canter of his pulse, the gallop of his heart. All he could do was brace himself against the painful kick of need that tensed every muscle of his body and robbed him of thought.
“How’s your shoulder?” she asked, shifting the lean of her head on her hands to look up at him.
He rolled his right shoulder. The muscles were still tight but the pain was nothing more than an aging bruise. “It’s fine.” He scanned the pasture, but his whole being tuned in to the low thrum of her so close. “Everything okay?”
She nodded and her braid shifted forward, liquid silver in the moonlight. He remembered the softness of her hair on his skin, felt his desire throb at the memory.
“I like to come out here and watch the horses when I can’t sleep,” she said.
“Does that happen often, not sleeping?” He hated to think of her rest as honeycombed with nightmares. In his arms all those years ago, she’d slept contentedly. How long since he’d felt the satisfaction of holding a woman so dear to him?
She shrugged. “Sometimes it seems like such a waste. All those hours in the darkness and nothing to show for it.”
He nodded, not quite sure what to say. What would she do if he ran a finger along the curve of her cheek? Would she run from him if he offered to give the darkness meaning? Would she recognize the taste of his kiss?
Fifteen years of near vegetation, the sheriff had said. Did she still blame Kyle?
“They don’t look right, do they?” The fine-boned fingers of one hand waved in the horses’ direction. The remembered feel of them on his skin sent a warm shiver of anticipation down his spine, pooled a hot ache in his groin.
“The horses? No, they don’t.”
“Dr. Parnell says there are no drugs in the feed. I had him run the tests again.”
Kevin knew she’d put all her hopes in those tests, believing they would secure her the right to their perpetual care. When the horses left in spite of her fighting spirit, how would she handle the loss? His fingers dug into the wood of the fence. His heels pressed into the lower rail. She wouldn’t understand the fierceness of his hug, of his need to deflect sorrow before it touched her. “What are you hoping to find?”
“Something. Anything.” She sighed. The soft sound echoed in the night, mournful somehow as it floated into the wide-open plain. His heart eddied with regret. “I don’t know. A reason, I guess. Something that makes sense. Their fatigue is getting worse. Titan’s all bruised and I can’t figure out how he got his legs so knocked around.”
He nodded. The degree of lethargy wasn’t normal in horses so young, so fit—even taking into account their near-fatal accident. She was getting too attached to animals that could do nothing but break her heart. Why had she chosen this line of work?
“Dr. Parnell is running the blood tests again,” she said, chin on hands. “He said there was something odd about the results and thought the lab might have processed them wrong.”
For her sake, he hoped the new results gave her an answer.
“If he’s not drugging them,” she said, “what do you suppose Bancroft is doing to them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tessa Bancroft’s protocol, what do you suppose it is?”
He’d watched Dr. Warner perform his daily exam and hadn’t seen anything out of place. “They check the horses’ pulse, respiration and temperature.”
She fell silent, her gaze focused on Apollo and Perseus. Cicadas shrilled. Mosquitoes whined. Wind ruffled leaves. “Chance says you don’t exist.”
Her offhand comment zinged like a cattle prod. His jaw tightened. How close to the truth was his brother? How long did he have before his twin confronted him? Before Kent escorted him out of town? “I’m real enough. You checked my references.”
“They only go back a few years. What did you do before?”
This was the time. This was the place. All he had to do was open his mouth and let the truth spill out. I’m Kyle. I’ve come to pay back my debt to you.
But light had danced in her eyes in
the past few days. She’d eaten whole meals, not just bites. In spite of the Thoroughbreds’ deteriorating condition, there was a lightness and a brightness to her that he couldn’t bear to see dimmed. The truth would sting. So he turned away, peered into the night.
“I was in an accident,” he started. The words stuck in his throat as a flood of memories swamped him.
The terror in his brother’s eyes flashed before him. Kent couldn’t swim and Kyle had shoved him in the fast-running Red Thunder River—all because he couldn’t tell Ellen he loved her, couldn’t listen to her fears, couldn’t stand to have his own brother intercede for him again.
The responsible one. The rebel. They’d carved out those roles early and never quite managed to shed them. As little as Kent thought of him, Kevin still cared for his twin. He’d tried to save him. God, he’d tried.
“Grab it!”
The tips of Kent’s fingers skimmed his. The water carried him away. He choked on a mouthful of panic as the dead paraded before him. His mother. His father. “Kent, no, Kent, don’t leave me!”
The root of a submerged tree caught Kent, held him safe for a moment.
Thrusting out his hand, Kyle threw himself against the bank. “Grab it!” The sandy soil crumbled beneath him. Gravity pulled him forward. He smacked headfirst into the turbulent water, taking Kent with him.
He held on to Kent’s waist as the water tugged at them. “Hang on!” But, panic-ridden, Kent had fought him. Then another dead tree appeared and Kevin swam for it with every fiber of his being, thinking that, for once, he’d win.
Then the river tossed Ellen his way. He snatched and brought her back to the shore, worried, so worried because of the bleeding cut on the side of her head, because her eyes were closed, because her moan had spoken of pain.
He wanted to stay by her side, but his brother’s terror called to him. Garth, his best buddy and partner in mischief, had come crashing through the brush.
“Take care of Ellen,” he’d said, then he’d plunged into the water again to find Kent. The rocks. He had no choice. He pushed Kent and the ballast of dead tree he refused to release out of the path.
Then nothing but blackness until he’d woken up in a hospital more broken than whole. Racked with pain and guilt, he’d wanted nothing more than to let himself perish, but Nina had dragged him back into living.
The memories weighed on him, had him gasping for air. He jumped from the fence.
“I spent a couple of years recovering,” he said, thankful the shadows hid his torment. “Then I worked for my grandmother.”
“Why did you change your identity?”
Did she know? Had the sheriff already told her? He glanced at her over his shoulder. Her gaze studied him. He held his breath. Did she see through his scars, through his deception? If she did, he could read no fear, no hatred, no recognition in her moonlit eyes, only curiosity. He swallowed hard. “Because a new face deserved a new name.”
“Because of the accident?”
He nodded.
Perseus coughed, making a hacking sound that startled Apollo, who stumbled sideways before catching himself. Blue got up, sniffed the air.
“The cough, that’s new.” Ellen frowned.
Blue started forward toward the shed, then stopped, turned and looked at Kevin. “I’m sure he’s okay.”
Kevin thrust his hands into his jeans pockets. Someone was out there. So involved had he been with Ellen that he hadn’t sensed the dark and cold malignancy now tainting the air. “Why don’t you go back to the house? I’ll check on Perseus and see you in the morning.”
He didn’t want to alarm her, but he wanted her out of harm’s way—just in case.
“I’ll wait,” she said, cranking up her stubborn chin.
He tensed, torn between protection and action. “I’d feel better knowing you got some rest.”
Her frown deepened. “Something wrong?”
She scanned the pasture, took in the grazing horses. Speak in her language. He knew the one weapon he could use to ensure her cooperation. With reluctance, he let a slip of truth escape. “Moonlight becomes you.”
He heard her sharp intake of breath, saw her eyes grow wide, her pupils darken in the glow of the moon. He could almost hear the quickening beat of her heart. He turned until the moon enhanced the drape of denim below his waist, let her see his body’s response to her. As he’d hoped, she trusted him with the horses, but not with herself, and withdrew.
She nodded, backed away from the fence. “Okay, I’ll see you in the morning.”
Blue’s ears pricked toward the clump of mesquite at the back of the pasture. Who, what was hiding in the shadows? Blue’s tail raised and bristled. His nose wrinkled and his lips curled.
Kevin watched until the door of the house closed and the light went out. Then he set out across the pasture, Blue at his heels.
He loved her. Always had. Always would.
But love had to be earned. He’d failed her. Now he had to fix his mistakes.
The hair on Blue’s back stood up, reminding Kevin danger lurked in the shadows. He had a job to do and it didn’t include seducing Ellen Paxton. He had to keep her safe.
Loneliness howled inside him.
His silent bay went unanswered.
WHY HADN’T ELLEN PAXTON simply fed the horses the grain she was sent? All this wasted time could have been avoided. Nothing could save these animals. They were the walking dead. But Tessa needed them alive and she needed them at the clinic to safeguard the project’s integrity and dispose of them properly. Otherwise, too many questions would be asked.
She waited in the dark in the truck while the task was done. This time nothing would go wrong. Even Ellen Paxton’s sexy ranch hand couldn’t work miracles. Not against the wrath of nature’s fury. Or a woman scorned, she added with satisfaction. How would Ellen Paxton react to the little secret the mousy technician had unearthed? Tessa’s trump card. She would hold on to it for a bit longer.
In the meantime, they would be overwhelmed. The judge would have no choice but to return the horses immediately.
After that, one well-placed whisper into the right ear would put the final nail in the coffin. Betrayal, she knew, was the bitterest pill to swallow.
Through the trees she could see them. Her fingers itched to reach for the revolver in the glove compartment. Bradley thought her only skill was her beauty. He would die of shock if he knew how well she could handle a gun. Handling a weapon was one of the many survival skills she’d learned on the streets.
Against the moonlight, the man and the woman made solid targets. She could drop him first. Then before he even hit the ground, she could plug a second round into her. There would be a certain satisfaction in that. But it would be messy, and right now she needed a measure of discretion—for the black, for the goal.
Footsteps hurried around the truck.
“Is it done?” she asked, anticipation making her lick her lips. This time, she’d chosen the right help. Young and champing at the bit for a slice of excitement, Bradley’s most recent cowpoke did not fear deportation. Little did he know that once his usefulness passed, he would find himself looking for new employment.
“It should give at any time.”
“Are you sure?”
He smiled. “Want to watch?”
She glanced out at the quiet ranch, so serene in the moonlight. The proposition was tempting, but she needed to set up her alibi. “Go.”
Chapter Seven
“Park by the bakery,” Ellen said, and he eased into a space by the front door.
After morning chores, they headed to town to refurbish supplies. She said nothing about his inappropriate behavior last night, but Kevin noticed a new stiffness about her, a new distance. With all she’d gone through, the last thing she needed was to have her heart broken by a hired hand, so he, too, pretended nothing had happened.
While waiting for her friend Taryn to finish waiting on another customer, Ellen pretended to shop the clear cas
es lined with croissants, sweet rolls and hard rolls and the racks of still-warm sourdough boules, French baguettes and multigrain loaves. Girl talk. He was sure he wanted no part of that.
Ellen planned a visit to the grocery store, the feed store and the hardware store. That gave him a couple of hours on his own. He headed for the gas station on the guise of filling the tank of his truck. He pumped and paid, then headed for the pay phone by the rest room.
He trusted Stanley Black Bear, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was the waning pang of need to return to Colorado. The lack of urgency felt like a betrayal of Nina and the roots she’d finally put down. Stanley said he had everything under control, but that didn’t make Kevin feel any better.
When he returned to the truck, the sheriff waited for him, one elbow lazily lounging on the back panel, one battered hiking boot propped on the bumper. “Mr. Ransom. I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced.”
His gaze was direct, thorough—purposeful. Control, Kent had always had it. Even in the heat of an argument he could stay cool.
But not Kyle, never Kyle. He’d taken all of his anger at himself for not finding the right words, at Ellen for not understanding, at Kent for interfering, and channeled it into a shove. And with it, changed all of their lives.
An eel of apprehension snaked its way through Kevin’s gut. For a second, he was seventeen again, the rebel to Kent’s responsible one, feeling somehow lacking. Almost-forgotten anger simmered, just waiting for a flame to fire it to boil.
Kevin stared at the hand thrust in front of him. He had no choice but to take it.
His brother’s hand was firm and strong. He wasn’t prepared for the wave of emotion that crashed through him. I’m sorry, Kent. I never meant to hurt you.
But there was Ellen to think of. The fresh—and different—footsteps he’d found in the dirt last night put her in jeopardy. Then there’d been the sounds of a truck engine close by. What reason would a truck have to sneak around with no headlights at that time of the night? For her sake, his apology would have to wait. “Kevin Ransom.”
