She should have realized Eli would look to Trace.
“Your mother’s right,” Trace said. “Chew before you swallow.”
Eli made a disgruntled noise through a mouthful of sandwich but waited before taking another bite. Where was the hatred for all things Blackthorne? Callie wondered. The answer was simple: Blotted out by the need for a man’s approval … and a father’s love.
Callie watched the expression in Trace’s eyes as he drank in the sight of his son. Wistful. Proud. Sad. Callie wished there were some way to make up for the time with Eli that Trace had lost. But there wasn’t. As much as she knew Eli would benefit from having a father’s attention and love, she couldn’t bear to give up her son. But she was afraid to leave her family prey to the machinations of Jackson Blackthorne.
Callie glanced at Trace and caught him looking back at her, the remnants of desire lingering in his eyes, and felt her body quicken. Maybe she wouldn’t be going with Trace. But he was here now and he wanted her. She turned to Eli and said, “After lunch, you and Hannah need to lie down and take a quick nap.”
“What are you and Trace going to do?” Eli asked.
Callie couldn’t stop the flush that stained her cheeks. “Trace and I have things to … discuss.” She looked up at Trace, the invitation clear in her eyes.
“Aw, Mom,” Eli complained.
“Aw, Mom,” Hannah echoed.
She knew Trace understood her intentions perfectly when he said, “Eli, Hannah, your mother’s right.”
Callie could feel Trace’s carnal gaze on her the whole time she told a bedtime story to Hannah to help her fall asleep on the blanket. Despite his protestations that he wasn’t sleepy, Eli’s eyes closed even before Hannah’s. When they were both asleep, Callie lifted her gaze to meet Trace’s.
He stood and held out his hand. “Come with me.”
Her legs felt like jelly when she stood. She was grateful for Trace’s strong, supporting hand. “We can’t go far,” she said, glancing back at the two sleeping children.
“We won’t,” he promised.
In fact, he didn’t go any farther than the opposite side of the massive live oak, which completely hid them from the children’s view. He backed her up against the tree, settling himself in the cradle of her thighs with a satisfied sigh.
“I’ve missed this,” he murmured against her hair.
Callie settled her hands on his hips as she leaned her head back for the kisses he was raining on her throat. “Me, too.”
There was no way their lovemaking could be culminated, not with the children sleeping so close. But it was sweet to be held, lovely to be kissed. She hadn’t expected Trace to talk. She was stunned by what he said.
“I love you, Callie. I’ve never stopped loving you. I shouldn’t have run away when trouble came. I should have stayed to see things out. I should have been there with you when our son was born.”
Callie couldn’t breathe. She shoved Trace away and gasped for air, staring at him, wide-eyed with disbelief. She should have felt euphoric. The man she had never stopped loving, had never stopped loving her. What she felt was sick to her stomach. “Oh, Trace.”
“I realized when I saw you in the pond, when I saw all of us together in the pond, that I don’t want to run away again without trying to make things work between us. I want us to be a family, Callie. I want to make this a real marriage. I want you to come with me to Australia and bring Eli and Hannah. Will you?”
The sob erupted without warning, and Callie let herself be comforted in Trace’s strong arms. She muffled the sound against his shoulder, not wanting her children to awaken and find her crying. Callie wasn’t certain herself whether she was weeping with joy or in despair. In a fairy tale, Trace’s speech would have signaled the beginning of happily ever after. But wonderful as his admission of love was, Callie was too aware of what still stood between them.
The feud. Their families. Her responsibilities.
“Can’t you stay here?” she asked at last.
“I have a ranch of my own in Australia, Callie. I’ll never have that here at Bitter Creek so long as my father’s alive, and God willing, he’ll live to a ripe old age. My future is in another place. I want you with me. Come with me,” he urged.
“I can’t Trace. Don’t you see? I can’t!”
“I’ll be leaving after Christmas,” he said. “And I’ll be taking Eli with me.”
She reached out to grasp his shirt with both hands. “Don’t take my son away from me, Trace. Please. I’m begging you.”
He freed himself from her grasp and took a step back, as his blue eyes turned to winter frost. “He’s my son, too, Callie. The choice is yours.”
“I want to be with you, Trace. I do. I …” The words I love you stuck in her throat. She couldn’t tell Trace she loved him. If she truly loved him, wouldn’t she sacrifice anything—everything—to be with him? But she wasn’t willing to do that yet. She wished she could be with him and help her family too. But until she could figure out how to be in two places at once, that was impossible.
“My family needs me,” she said on a whisper of breath. “Don’t make me choose between you and them. It’s tearing me apart!”
“I’ll never understand you Creeds,” he said bitterly. “Never.”
As Trace wheeled and stalked away, Callie felt a sharp stab of loss. When he was gone, a wave of loneliness overwhelmed her. Callie’s knees buckled and she sank to the ground. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think. It hurt way too much to feel. But feelings bombarded her, nevertheless. Anger. Disappointment. Frustration.
“Hey, Mom, are you sleeping, or what?”
Callie looked up at her son and said, “I was just resting. All that swimming wore me out.”
“Trace says it’s time to go,” Eli said. “We already packed the saddlebags and tightened all the cinches. Come on.”
Eli tugged her to her feet, and Callie braced herself to confront Trace again. To her chagrin, he acted as though his confession of love and her inability to make a choice had never happened.
“You ready to go?” he asked.
She nodded. “We might as well get back. I’ve got—”
“Work to do,” he finished for her.
“Well, I do,” she muttered, as she mounted her horse.
“Oh, and Callie,” he said, when they were separated a little ways from the children on horseback.
“What now?” she retorted.
“I just realized we never had a wedding night. Wouldn’t want the wedding annulled for failure to consummate,” he said. “Expect me after the children are tucked in.”
Chapter 17
TRACE HAD TAKEN A RISK TELLING CALLIE HE loved her. He’d hoped it would make a difference. He should have known better. Callie was still clinging tooth and claw to Three Oaks. He might have considered finding a good manager for his cattle station and staying in Texas until Callie could leave, if she’d said those three words back to him. I love you. Was that so hard to say?
He watched Callie from the corner of his eye. She’d been keeping her distance from him since he’d told her he intended to come to her bed. But he wasn’t going to give up what little time he had left with her just because she was too stubborn to realize what a mistake she was making. He was going to take what he wanted for the little time he had left in Texas and hope it was enough to fill the empty spaces inside him for a lifetime.
“Hey! What’s that Texas Ranger doing here?” Eli called out, as they approached the barn.
Owen was leaning against the shady side of the barn, his hat pulled low. As soon as he saw them, he stood and tipped his hat back, revealing the grim look on his face.
“More bad news,” Callie said, shaking her head.
“You don’t know that,” Trace said.
Callie shot him a look of disgust. “Take a look at his face. I guarantee I’m not going to be glad to hear whatever he has to say.”
“Eli, you and Hannah take your horses around to the
trough and give them a drink,” Trace said. “Not too much, or they’ll end up with a bellyache.”
“Okay, Trace,” Eli said.
“Okay, Trace,” Hannah chirped.
Trace saw Hannah mimic the frown Eli aimed at Owen. Owen was Eli’s uncle. They should have been good friends. But because Callie had kept his son a secret from him, the boy hated Blackthornes indiscriminately. Trace hoped and prayed the day would come when Eli could accept and trust and cherish his Blackthorne relations.
Before Owen could say a word, Eli came running back around the barn, hell-bent-for-leather. “Mom!” he shouted. “It’s Freckles Fancy! She’s in the corral. They’re all back. All four of them!”
Callie slid off her horse and hurried to meet up with her excited son. “Are you sure?” She turned to look at Owen. “You’ve recovered my stolen stock?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Owen said, touching the brim of his Stetson. “And caught the horse thief who stole them.”
Callie laughed. “This is wonderful! Where? How?”
“Fellow was trying to sell them at a small auction house,” Owen explained. “One of the buyers had seen my fliers on your missing fillies, thought he recognized Freckles Fancy, and gave me a call.”
Trace wondered why Owen’s eyes remained so bleak. He’d caught the bad guys and recovered Callie’s stolen horses. That should be cause for celebration. Something was obviously amiss. Owen glanced at Eli, then at Trace, then gestured away with his head. Trace figured Owen wanted the boy gone and said, “Eli, did you leave your horse drinking at the trough?”
“Oh, yeah,” Eli said sheepishly. “Gotta go, Mom.”
Once Eli had disappeared around the side of the barn, Owen said, “There’s more.”
Callie turned toward Owen, a brilliant smile on her face, obviously expecting more good news. “What?”
“The cowboy who stole your stock was paid to take it.”
Trace turned toward Callie in time to see that she wasn’t entirely surprised.
“Who paid him?” she asked.
“Russell Handy.”
Trace felt his heart sink when he heard the name of his father’s segundo.
“I knew it!” Callie said. “I knew Blackjack arranged—”
“Handy says Blackjack had nothing to do with it,” Owen interrupted.
“Then he’s lying,” Callie said. “He’s your father’s segundo, his right-hand man. He’d do anything for Blackjack!”
“Nevertheless,” Owen said evenly, “Handy claims he acted on his own, without orders from anybody.”
“You have to get him to tell the truth,” Callie said. “You know your father’s guilty. You know he’s desperate to own Three Oaks. He must have ordered Handy to have someone steal our stock.”
Trace caught another look from his brother that made his stomach clench. He felt it roll when Owen said, “It gets worse.”
Callie stared at Owen, her eyes wary. “I’m listening.”
“The horse thief was going down for the third time, so he offered to deal us some information, so long as he got immunity from prosecution. Seems Handy hired him to do more than steal your horses.”
Trace saw the blood draining from Callie’s face and took a step toward her in case she needed support. He turned to Owen, knowing what he was going to hear, dreading it, but needing to hear it anyway. “What else did he do for Handy?”
Owen met Callie’s eyes and said, “Handy hired him to kill your father.”
An ululating wail of despair issued from Callie’s throat. “Oh, Daddy, nooooo.” She jerked free when Trace reached for her, then backed away, staring at him in horror, as though he’d changed into a monster before her eyes. She stared first at Owen, then met Trace’s gaze with eyes full of pain. “Your father had mine killed.”
“Russell Handy had your father shot,” Trace countered.
“He’s your father’s man. You know Blackjack is guilty. What reason would Russell Handy have to murder my father?”
Trace couldn’t think of a single one. He exchanged a questioning look with Owen, but his brother the Texas Ranger looked back at him with stony eyes.
“You see? I’m right,” Callie said. She turned to Trace and said, “Oh, God, this is the end of everything. I could never—We can never—How can you ever expect Eli to deal with…this?”
Callie had refrained from saying one grandfather having the other killed in cold blood. But Trace knew what she meant. This was a disaster. The worst possible revelation at the worst possible moment. How could he cling to the hope that Callie would ever let herself love him now? He was the enemy again. And this time it wasn’t just one brother crippling another. It was one father having the other killed.
“I’ve arrested Russell Handy,” Owen said.
“Big deal,” Callie snarled. “What about Blackjack? When do you arrest him?”
“There’s no evidence that Blackjack had anything to do with your father’s death.”
“To hell with evidence!” Callie shouted. “What about common sense? Common sense will tell you what you need to know. Your father hated mine. He had him killed. End of story.”
“That isn’t how the law works,” Owen said.
“Right,” Callie snapped back. “That isn’t how the law works in Bitter Creek, Texas, when your father is the murderer, and his son is the law.”
Trace waited for some rebuttal from Owen, but Owen remained mute.
“What happens now?” Callie demanded.
“Russell Handy will be prosecuted for murder,” Owen said.
“And your father will pay him to hold his tongue.”
Again, Owen made no effort to refute Callie’s accusation.
“You make me sick,” Callie said. “Both of you,” she said, including Trace in her furious gaze. “Get off my land. Go! Get!”
She batted her hands at them as though she were swatting mosquitoes into bloody pulps, and both men knew enough about a woman in a rage to get out of her way.
“Can you give me a ride?” Trace asked Owen. “My truck’s parked by the kitchen door. I’d rather not cross paths with Callie again before she’s had a chance to cool down.”
“Sure,” Owen replied. “Get in.”
Trace stared out the window at the fertile grassland, letting the silence grow between them. As they were nearing the Castle, he asked, “Do you believe Dad is innocent?”
“Did you ever think maybe Jesse Creed wasn’t the one who was supposed to get killed?” Owen replied.
“Run that by me again,” Trace said, his brow wrinkling in confusion.
“The one thing missing—if Handy really is the culprit—is motive. Why would Russell Handy want Jesse Creed dead?”
“Beats me,” Trace said. “But I take it you’re going to enlighten me.”
Owen glanced at him, then focused his eyes back on the road. “There’s only one other person I can think of besides Dad that Russell Handy would sacrifice his own life to protect.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense,” Trace said. “Spit it out.”
“Mom.”
“Now I’m intrigued,” Trace said. “Mom and Russell Handy? I don’t think I’ve ever seen her speak to the man.”
“They were lovers.”
Trace felt as though someone had grabbed a handful of his gut and twisted. “That’s not funny, little brother.”
“I caught them together in the barn when I was nine. I heard Mom making strange noises, animal sounds, and I thought maybe she was hurt. So I kept looking till I found her—them—in an empty stall. I’d seen enough mares being covered to know what they were doing. I stood there too long, and Mom saw me.”
“Jesus,” Trace said.
Owen glanced at Trace, then looked back at the road. “She just smiled at me over Russell Handy’s shoulder and kept right on with what she was doing.”
Trace felt like he was going to throw up. He opened the window and stuck his nose into the wind. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to
fight his sudden nausea. He swallowed down the bile in his throat, then swallowed again when it wouldn’t stay down. “Jesus,” he muttered.
“I think she expected me to tell Dad,” Owen said. “I think she might even have wanted me to tell him.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Owen shrugged. “I don’t know. I was afraid of what would happen, I guess. I’ve never told anyone what I saw. Until now.”
Trace turned to Owen and said, “I swear to God, if you’re making this up—”
“I only told you now because you asked if I thought Dad is guilty. I don’t. I think Mom asked Russell Handy to get rid of Mrs. Creed.”
“Why would she do that?”
Owen aimed a cynical look at Trace. “Why do you think?”
Because she was jealous. “So you think Mom asked Handy to have Lauren Creed killed, but the thief was a bad shot and accidentally killed Jesse instead?”
“More likely, Handy couldn’t stomach the idea of killing a woman, so he ordered the thief to kill Jesse, figuring that would accomplish the same thing—getting Lauren Creed to leave the neighborhood. That would square with the thief’s version of who he was supposed to shoot.”
Trace took off his hat and shoved his hand through his hair, then put his hat back on and tugged it low on his forehead. “I can’t believe Mom would do something like that.”
“Why not?”
“Why do you think? She’s my mother, for God’s sake!” Their mother was distracted. Disconnected. Even befuddled or bewildered by what was going on around her when she was in the middle of a painting. But he had never, ever seen the kind of jealous rage that would allow him to imagine his mother asking her illicit lover to kill Lauren Creed. “Mom couldn’t be that corrupt inside and create such beautiful paintings,” he murmured.
“What does one have to do with the other?” Owen asked. “I know a man with hands so talented he can sculpt a marble horse that you’d swear could breathe. He used those same hands to strangle his wife.”
“Mom has never even acknowledged Dad’s infatuation with Mrs. Creed,” Trace insisted.
Owen lifted a brow. “You mean, until she hired Russell Handy to kill the competition.”
The Cowboy Page 27
