Texas Homecoming

by Maggie Shayne

  "Hey, I'd have come whether you asked me to or not. Heck, the whole clan is out there waiting to see Luke. But I'll give the three of you some time first." She ducked back outside, and pulled the door closed behind her.

  "Luke?" Baxter asked softly. He squirmed out of his mother's arms, went to the chair and pulled it up close to the bed. Then he climbed up. "You okay?"

  "They tell me I'm gonna be just fine, kiddo. Nothing to worry about."

  Very gently, Bax reached out and hugged Luke's neck. "You kept your promise," he said. "Just like you said you would. You brought my mom back home."

  "Told you, kid. I never break a promise." Luke made the effort it took to put his arms around Bax and hug him in return, but damn, it was hard work.

  "I love you, Luke," Baxter said.

  Oh, hell, that did it. His eyes didn't just burn now, they welled to overflowing, despite Luke's rapid blinking. "I love you, too, Bax."

  * * *

  JASMINE STOOD THERE AND WATCHED the two embrace. She saw the tears in Luke's eyes and the adoration in Baxter's. And all of the sudden, she needed to be alone. She was so close to something. So close to finally understanding...it was nipping at her brain, and she just needed to grab hold of it and hold on.

  She backed out of the room. The two were so involved with each other by then, she didn't think either of them would notice. She ran right past the crowd of Brands lingering in the hall, located the nearest rest room and ducked inside. She cranked on the cold water tap, splashed handfuls of it in her face, battled an attack of hyperventilation.

  Both hands braced on the sink, she lifted her head and stared into the mirror. "My God," she whispered. "You love him. You love that man!"

  * * *

  CHELSEA SAT BY THE BEDSIDE. "Stop worrying, Luke. She only went to the rest room."

  Luke frowned anyway, worried all the same. "She didn't look well, Chelsea." Baxter had curled up beside him on the bed, snuggled into a little ball in the crook of his arm, and fallen asleep.

  "Well, of course she didn't. She's been holding a vigil at your bedside since you came out of surgery. They couldn't get her to leave. She flew home with you. The girl's got it bad, Luke."

  He shook his head. "She feels responsible, I imagine. It's just guilt."

  Chelsea smiled. "Ah, be dense if you want to. Why mess up a perfectly good Brand family tradition?"

  He sent her a smirk. "How come Garrett's not with you?"

  "The menfolk had to take off. Got a call from a neighbor. Seems the north pasture fence is down and we have cattle all over the place. They won't be long getting things squared away."

  He nodded. There was yet another tap on the door, and a nurse came in. "We have to take Mr. Brand down to X-ray now. It won't take long."

  Chelsea nodded, got to her feet and gathered Baxter up in her arms. "See you in a few minutes, Luke."

  "Thanks, Chelsea. For taking such good care of Bax and...and, well, everything."

  She nodded. "A fall wedding would be nice, don't you think?" She sent him a wink and carried Bax out into the waiting room.

  Luke lay back, thinking his cousin-in-law had higher hopes than he did. Damn, a fall wedding sounded good to him, too, though. He smiled crookedly as the nurse wheeled him out of his room, into an elevator. Then she pulled a needle out of a deep white pocket

  "What's that?" he asked. "Not more sedatives, I hope. I'd like to stay awake for a while."

  The nurse smiled down at him. "Just pain meds. Don't worry." She stuck the needle into his IV tube. A second ticked by, then two, and then his head was swimming.

  "Whoa, those must be powerful...main peds...uh...I mean um..." He forgot what he'd been saying. The doors slid open, and she pushed him out. Ceiling lights flashed overhead, running past him as if they were attached to a conveyor belt. He found that incredibly funny and started to laugh, but it hurt when he laughed, and he wondered vaguely why his pain meds didn't prevent that.

  Doors whooshed open. Fresh Texas air hit him in the face. Hey, he was outdoors. Since when did they put X-ray outdoors? Whoa, now his bed was being picked up. What the hell? He tried to lift his head, to make sense of what he was seeing before the ambulance doors slammed shut on him. A man, handing a wad of cash to the nurse. The nurse, yanking off her name tag and tossing it onto the ground, then hurrying away. Hell, she was no nurse at all.

  * * *

  STILL NOT SURE WHO THIS woman was she had become—or was in the process of becoming—Jasmine left the rest room and went back to the waiting area where the Brand women were gathered. Chelsea said, "They had to take Luke down for an X-ray. He'll be back in a minute."

  "God, talk about padding the bill," Jasmine muttered. "They just X-rayed the poor man a few minutes before you all got here."

  Jessi said, "He'll be glowing in the dark if they keep this up." The others laughed. Kirsten and Penny. And the two women due to give birth at any moment, Taylor and Esmeralda.

  Frowning, Jasmine said, "Where'd all your husbands go?"

  "Had a cattle emergency out at the ranch," Chelsea said. "I'm sure they won't be long."

  "Oh." Jasmine sat down, drumming her fingers on the arm of the overstuffed chair and glancing down the hall toward X-ray.

  Then Chelsea's cell phone rang. She answered it and said, "No, Garrett's not available at the moment. This is his wife, can I take a message?" She listened, and her gaze flew to Jasmine's. "Oh, no."

  "What?" Jasmine demanded.

  Chelsea disconnected and eyed her. "Petronella's escaped. And the tapes you gave the police have vanished from the evidence room."

  "Excuse me, ladies?" a deep voice said. They turned to see the swarthy. Mexican-American physician they all called Doc standing there by Luke's hospital room door. "Can someone tell me where my patient has gone?"

  "Oh, my God," Jasmine whispered. She whirled on Chelsea. "Which way did that nurse take Luke?"

  "To the elevator—I think it was going down. Why?"

  "Because X-ray is down the hall!"

  Chelsea frowned, looking from the doctor to Jasmine over and over. "You mean...you think..."

  "I think Petronella somehow followed us here, and now he has Luke." Jasmine got to her feet, turned toward the elevator. "He probably even engineered that so-called emergency that got all the men out of the way."

  "Wait!" Chelsea cried. "Jasmine, where the hell are you going?"

  "I'm going after Luke!"

  Chelsea caught her, gripped her shoulder, turned her around. "Not alone, you're not. That's not the way we do things in this family, Jasmine. You can't keep behaving like this loner you used to be, because that's not who you are anymore!"

  "I'm not?" she asked, her tone impatient, even bordering on sarcastic.

  "No. You're a Brand woman now. Maybe it's not official yet, but it's inevitable, and family means more than some legal documentation, anyway. You're one of us. So is Bax. And so is Luke. And Brands don't let family handle trouble alone."

  For an instant, just an instant, she reeled at the power with which those words hit her. It was as if, suddenly, she knew it was utterly true. That was who she'd seen when she'd looked into the mirror. A woman who was part of a family. The family the child inside her had always longed for.

  She was a Brand.

  "Taylor and Esmeralda, you are far too pregnant to be on this end of things. Take care of Baxter. Have Doc show you someplace safe to hole up, and insist some security people stay with you." She tossed the cell phone to Esmeralda, who caught it, frowned at it and handed it to Taylor. "Try to contact the men and tell them what's happened."

  Doc was at the nurses' desk now, giving rapid orders. He turned and came toward Jasmine as she started for the elevator again. "An ambulance just pulled out of the lot, without its crew. And someone left this note for you at the desk."

  He handed her a sealed envelope. She tore it open and read the note inside.

  "Jasmine—If you want Luke Brand back alive, meet me when and where I say. Bring
the original tapes, as I know full well those I stole were copies, and bring the boy. No one else, or your hero dies. Call this number in one hour for further instructions." It was signed GP.

  She nodded. The elevator doors slid open, and she stepped inside. "The note says I'm to come alone," she said.

  "Right," Chelsea replied. Then she, Jessi, Penny and Kirsten joined her. As the door slid closed again, Jasmine saw Taylor and Esmeralda being led down a hall by Doc, who carried a still sleepy Baxter.

  Five women got out of the elevator on the ground floor and into Chelsea's station wagon. After asking which way the stolen ambulance had gone, Jasmine drove, and Chelsea read the note aloud to the others as they sped down the highway out of El Paso.

  Kirsten smiled. "That's the good thing about small towns, you know? Not that many phone numbers. Even fewer exchanges. That one in particular belongs to a little town between El Paso and Quinn, right on the Rio Grande. It's called Deadrock, and I don't imagine it has too many public telephones."

  "Chances are this Petronella character wouldn't be using a private one. He can't know anyone from around here, can he?"

  "Doubtful," Jasmine said. "But why wouldn't he have just used his cell phone?"

  "In Deadrock?" Kirsten smiled slowly. "No reception whatsoever."

  Chelsea nodded slowly. "If he's in a motel and we call, we might get the front desk first, then we'll know where he is. Either way, I don't like the idea of waiting an hour. Why don't we call him back right now?"

  ‘"Cause you gave your cell phone to Taylor," Jessi said.

  Kirsten opened her designer handbag. "You think I leave home without one?" Then she frowned. "Should we call in the police on this?"

  "And risk Luke's life?" Jasmine said, quickly and sharply. She schooled her tone before continuing. "No. We can call Garrett, tell him and the others where we're heading, but I don't think we should bring in any authorities. Not yet." She looked to Chelsea, a question in her eyes.

  Chelsea nodded in agreement. "We'll handle this the way we handle every other crisis—as a family. The men will be along as fast as they can get here. But we have a head start on catching up to this maniac. I have to believe we're the best chance Luke has right now." She looked around at the other women. "So we go after him ourselves. Now. We don't wait. Agreed?"

  One by one, the Brand women nodded.

  Chapter 16

  * * *

  WHEN LUKE OPENED HIS EYES again, he was hurting big time. The pain was like a trail of fire, burning in his chest and his back. Hell, he couldn't even move without inducing more of it. And his legs tingled as if covered in fire ants. What the hell had happened? Where was he?

  Warily he took in his surroundings, moving only his eyes, teeth grated. Paneled walls. A simple white globe of a light fixture in the ceiling. Cheesy art on the opposite walls. A window to the left— shade drawn, curtain closed so no light could stream in. He could only see the top of it without turning his head to see more. He was not in the hospital anymore.

  And finally, a voice—from another room he thought. The scent of tobacco smoke drifted on the air.

  "I told you to call in an hour. Why are you early?" There was silence. Then, "If you can't obey simple instructions, maybe I should kill him and get the hell out of here."

  Luke strained to lift his head. The spears of pain the act sent bolting through him were almost enough to make him scream aloud. But he forced it all the same and saw through the doorway into a second room, where a man sat at a table, smoking and speaking on the telephone.

  "Fine. But this is your last chance, Jasmine. You bring the boy, and you bring the tapes, or your boyfriend here dies." He paused, flicked ashes onto the floor and nodded. "That's better. Now, there's a stretch of ground without much on it besides cactus and rock, twenty-one point five miles out of El Paso, heading west on 375. Only thing close is a billboard advertising the county fair. You know where I mean?" He nodded. "Good. That's where I'll be. Half hour. And, Jasmine? Don't bother trying to track me down through the phone number. I'll be long gone from here within minutes, and you'll only be wasting precious seconds of your boyfriend's life." He hung up the phone.

  "You don't want those tapes, Petronella," Luke said, and it was a strain to say it. His voice came out gruff and hoarse. "You don't have any need of them now. Everyone knows you're guilty."

  He shrugged. "Knowing it and proving it are two different things."

  "You killed the guy who shot me," Luke went on.

  "That's right, I did. Killed him with his own gun. For you, though, I'm gonna use mine. It hasn't had a good workout since before I was arrested. I had to tuck it into hiding fast, to keep the cops from confiscating it." He patted his side. His jacket hid the gun from view.

  "So you've got two murder raps, and the escape charge to boot. Don't you see the tapes are of no use to you now?" Luke asked. "The only thing you can do now is run. You can never go back, even if you have the tapes."

  Petronella got to his feet and walked slowly into the room where Luke was. He smoked slowly, thoughtfully. "You're too smart for your own good, you know that?"

  "You don't want the tapes at all, do you?"

  Petronella thrust out a lower lip. "Nah. I want revenge. The bitch messed up my life, and she's gonna pay. And there ain't a thing you can do about it, being laid up like you are. You can't even get out of that bed."

  Luke wanted to leap out of the bed and nail the guy right then and there, but he could barely move. And then he thought maybe it was better to let Petronella go on believing he couldn't move at all. Even screaming pain was better than the numbness he'd felt before. But he would need every advantage.

  "You're so close to the border, you know. You could walk out of here right now, cross the Rio Grande and be in Mexico. They'd never find you there. People get lost there all the time."

  He nodded slowly. "That's the plan. Right after I off Jasmine and her scrawny kid, that's what I'll do. But first..." He reached into his jacket, pulled his gun level and aimed it at Luke. Luke tensed, preparing to lunge at the bastard with everything in him. But Petronella didn't fire. He frowned, looked at his gun, hefting it in his hand, his frown growing. "What the hell?" he asked, checking it, turning it over.

  Luke almost went limp with relief when he saw that there was no clip in the gun's hollow handle. Petronella spewed a stream of obscenities. "Dammit, I don't have freaking time for this kind of— did you do this? Where the hell is my clip?" As he spoke, he worked the action of the gun. A single bullet popped out of the chamber and landed on the floor, rolling slowly.

  One bullet

  Luke rolled out of the bed as Petronella reached for it. He landed hard, the bullet under him. Petronella gripped his shoulder, flung him onto his back.

  Luke closed his hand around the bullet. "What's the matter, Gianni? Is it your last one?"

  "It'll have to be enough. Gimme the bullet," Petronella demanded.

  Luke lay on his back on the floor. "No freaking way."

  "You think so, huh?" Petronella picked up a booted foot and stomped down hard on Luke's chest, right over one of the bullet wounds.

  Pain hit him so hard he howled with it, but he didn't let go of the bullet. Arms crossed over his chest, he rolled onto his side, doubled in pain.

  Petronella knelt in front of him. "Give it to me!"

  Luke decked him—just poked upward and outward with a fist and all the power he could put behind it. Which wasn't a hell of a lot, he thought, but apparently it was enough to knock Petronella on his ass.

  While the man was down, Luke rolled onto his belly, dragging himself, elbow over elbow, to the small room he'd spotted. He heard Petronella swear, heard him get up, and crawled faster. His upper body crossed the threshold. Petronella stepped down on the middle of Luke's back.

  "Give me the effing bullet!"

  Luke's back arched, chin coming off the floor in response to the weight on his injured back. The bastard would cripple him! He looked at the toilet
ahead of him, lifted his arm, took careful aim despite the pain racking him—and let fly.

  The small, shiny bullet flew in a perfect arc and hit the water with an anticlimactic little plop.

  Petronella kicked him in the head, and Luke saw stars as the man walked over him to the toilet, and bent to thrust his hand into the water. Luke tried to move. And found he couldn't. Not at all. More interestingly than that, he couldn't feel much of anything anymore, either.

  * * *

  "CALLING EARLY DIDN'T DO A hell of a lot of good. I was hoping it was a pay phone or a motel, and someone else would answer. Someone who'd tell us where the phone was," Kirsten said after Jasmine's call to Petronella.

  They'd stopped at a phone booth as they passed, just long enough for Chelsea to jump out, rip the telephone directory from its chain and jump back into the car again. Jessi was flipping through it now as they drove.

  "I have it!" she said. "Shoot, it wasn't hard. Deadwood only takes up three pages. That number is for one of the rooms above the Deadwood Bar and Grill."

  "Which is dead opposite the direction we need to head to meet Petronella," Chelsea pointed out. "If we go back, it'll make us late."

  Jasmine shook her head. "And that could cost Luke his life. We have to make that meeting, Chelsea."

  "I agree."

  Jessi nodded hard. "Me too."

  All the others in the car chimed in with agreement.

  Jasmine thinned her lips. "You know as well as I do that Petronella probably won't keep his side of the bargain. Even if we do everything he wants."

  "Fortunately," Chelsea said, reaching over to give Jasmine's hand a squeeze, "we aren't going to leave that decision up to him."

  They reached the designated meeting place within minutes, since they were already nearly there. There was no significant cover around. Just a billboard, some cacti dotting the landscape, a tumbleweed here and there. "We haven't got any weapons," Kirsten said as Chelsea pulled the car to a stop along the roadside in a cloud of dust