by Ann Major
She remembered the first time that idea had entered her head. She remembered who’d said the words that had filled her own heart with doubt about her husband.
Until then she’d believed what Caesar said—that he had loved and admired his brother and had grieved for him as she had, that he had given his own life to the ranch, that the good of the ranch was what he cared about.
Until then she’d had such high hopes for their marriage and what they would accomplish together. Until then she’d tried to be a real mother to his daughter.
Yes, she remembered the exact words that had been said to her to plant the seeds that had made her see that her marriage was an illusion. She’d been standing companionably under the Spur Tree with Aunt Mona, someone she’d trusted, even if they didn’t get along perfectly.
“The history of this ranch is soaked in blood,” Mona had said as the spurs had jingled in the wind.
“All that was a long time ago.”
“Was it? Jack was killed under mysterious circumstances, wasn’t he?”
“Jack? I never thought so before. He was breaking a horse,” Joanne had said a little too passionately.
“He rode out one day and the horse came back lame without him. Caesar found him, didn’t he? There was a single blow to the head. It was assumed he’d fallen, but they’d always been rivals, hadn’t they? Their father had forced them to compete, to make men of them,” she’d said. “Caesar came into power because of that accident, didn’t he?”
Doubt and dread had filled Joanne. “What are you implying?”
“Nothing.” Aunt Mona had laughed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Joanne had turned and stalked back to the house abruptly. But the damage had been done. The doubt had festered over the years.
She had tried never to think about that conversation again. But what one decides not to think about is sometimes the very thing that shapes ones life in a new and terrible direction. Doubt became a poison inside her. She had gone cold in Caesar’s bed, and that had proved fatal for their marriage.
She stroked Vanilla’s dark hair. Did she really regret her marriage?
She’d grown up a poor rancher’s daughter, motherless but ambitious. She’d loved the outdoors, animals, nature. When Jack had fallen in love with her, she’d known marrying him would be like marrying royalty. And she’d wanted that. Even after he’d died, she’d still wanted it. God help her, but she had. But had she sold herself to the devil to get it?
The baby’s skin was so soft, as was her hair. Joanne smiled. Vanilla had been born with the thickest head of hair, and Joanne had been conceited about Vanilla having such beautiful hair even as a small baby.
Vanilla. Thank goodness for Vanilla. Vanilla calmed her, made her feel that she still mattered.
She picked the baby up and carried her to the aviary where they stood outside together and talked about the birds. Or rather, Joanne talked and Vanilla watched and listened to her and the birds, lending the awful afternoon the magic of her trusting innocence.
The birds were peaceful as was the wind in the tops of the trees. Joanne wanted to teach the baby to love everything that she did. When Joanne opened the screen door, the white birds soared above Vanilla and her.
“Birds,” she said. “Birds. Aren’t they wonderful, darling? God is in each and every one of them.”
Joanne lifted her gaze and watched them, her eyes filled with as much awe as Vanilla’s.
The detective had scared her badly. He had warned of more killings. Would someone in the family talk to him? Tell him what he wanted to know?
She hadn’t gotten around to reading the rest of Electra’s hateful journal yet. Just skimming it that first day and reading about the twins had upset her too deeply. She hadn’t wanted to lug it to the hospital, and when she’d come home at night to Gigi’s, she’d been too exhausted.
Then Caesar had died. Since then, she hadn’t had time or the emotional energy.
But she’d brought it with her to the ranch to read, and had hidden it in her lingerie drawer.
I’ll read it later. Maybe tonight after I put Vanilla to bed.
Lizzy felt Cole’s eyes on her as she pushed his bedroom door open and entered without knocking. He got up from his computer and came toward her. “Lizzy?”
She swallowed. Despite his having humiliated her at the family meeting by suggesting she should step down, his husky voice saying her name warmed her through. He’d supported her more that most of her family had. She’d overheard Aunt Nanette complaining about money, which she needed for plastic surgery and for remodeling her own ranch house. And Joanne had told her Uncle B.B. wanted to impress Aunt Mona, who felt he’d been passed over too often.
Too late Lizzy realized she should have tackled this conversation in a less intimate setting than his bedroom.
She brought her chin up. “Why did you turn on me like that—in front of everybody?” Not wanting to, she glanced toward his bed.
“All right. I felt weird tensions in that room. Somebody tried to shoot you. Two women are already dead. What if you’re next on a madman’s hit list? I don’t want to find you strangled and raped. You’ve got to leave the ranch until I figure out what’s going on.”
“Until you figure out? Caesar put me in charge.”
“I held Cherry’s stiff, icy hand thinking it was yours. Do you have any idea what that was like?”
“I hope I am next. I can use that to trap—”
“You’ll get yourself killed,” he said. “That’s what you’ll do.”
She backed away from him. “You still think I’m a scared, incompetent, little girl.”
“Your father would want you gone. He’d want you safe.”
“He wanted me here.”
“Why can’t you see I’m right,” he said.
“Why can’t you see this is something I have to do?”
“This isn’t a career move you can mess up on.”
“Oh, so that’s what you think I’ll do?”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he snapped. “This is life and death. Your life.”
“You want me gone, just so you can be in charge?”
“Damn you. Sometimes you’re the most stubborn—”
“Me? All you’ve ever wanted is the ranch.”
“Maybe…in the past. But now I want you alive. I want a future with you.”
“I refuse to step down.”
“Then marry me, Lizzy, so I can protect you.”
When she didn’t answer him, he grabbed her. “I don’t want to lose you. Not when I’ve lost everybody else.”
Something hot in his eyes leapt from his soul to hers, and still she couldn’t trust him. Even as his mouth came closer, a voice warned her not to let him kiss her or take her to bed.
But when his lips touched hers and her arms wrapped around his waist, a power beyond herself made her his for the taking. Her skin tingled all over. A few blazing seconds later, she was naked on his bed. He stripped, and she watched him as avidly as he’d watched her. Then she held out her arms and pulled him down on top of her.
She circled his neck with her hands, and soon, long before he entered her, she was melting, moaning. As always, when they made love, everything felt wonderful and right and true.
“Marry me,” he said a long time later when he could breathe again.
“What happened to the gentleman in New York who wouldn’t bed me when he thought I was drunk and not thinking clearly? Now I’m drunk on your kisses.”
“This is different. I love you. And you love me.”
“You’re awfully sure of yourself.”
“Not really.”
She saw the pain in his eyes. Then she rolled on her side and traced the pattern of moonlight on his sheet. “Where were you when I was thrown and Star galloped into that pond?” Her voice was casual, but her heart was thundering.
She felt him shudder violently. Then he grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back against him so
that she faced him in the dark.
“Do you think I tried to kill you?” His fierce whisper cut her like a knife. “Is that what you think?”
“I simply asked you a question. Where were you?”
Pushing her away, he heaved himself off the bed. She watched him move across the darkness to the window. He lifted the blinds and peered out as if he were straining to see something, he couldn’t see. Then he snapped the blinds shut.
“You don’t know, do you?” she accused softly, switching on the lamp to study him more closely.
He grabbed his jeans off the floor and yanked them on. His jerky movements were hostile. Sliding his feet into a pair of leather loafers, he picked his shirt up off a chair and thrust his arms into it.
“Answer me,” she said. “Your silence is scaring me.”
“No!” He whirled. “All right? Are you satisfied? I don’t know! And it’s killing me because I don’t! I don’t know why my plane went down, either! I blame myself for Mia, too! For Vanilla being motherless! For not remembering them! For being alive even! For loving you. But, God help me, I can’t change any of it!”
His passionate outburst surprised her, touched her. “Oh, Cole, don’t torture yourself like that.”
“I don’t want your fake sympathy. You started this. Why didn’t I die, too? I remember the storm and an explosion and the plane suddenly spiraling downward. I remember being upside down in that wreckage underwater and barely conscious. I had a concussion and my leg was broken, but I remember unbuckling Mia’s seat belt and dragging her out of the plane. But that’s all I remember. I don’t know if she was dead or alive, or if I let her drown. The next thing I knew I was lying on a shrimper’s deck. His mouth was on mine and suddenly I was spitting water in his sunburned face. I didn’t know where I was or how I got there. I didn’t ask about Mia once. I didn’t remember there was a woman in the plane, much less my wife, until your mother started asking me about her. Why the hell am I alive? Why me?”
“You just are.”
“I lose time, okay? And I hate it! The doctors don’t know why, and they can’t seem to do anything about it. None of the medicines they’ve given me do any damn good. But I want you to know that if I had anything to do with what happened to you in the brush or to Star or even to Cherry, I don’t want to be alive. Understand?”
“You’re not a monster. I know you’re not. Don’t torment yourself by thinking like that.”
When she got up to comfort him, he backed away from her.
“No. You started this, remember.”
“Cole, come back to bed.” She held out her hand to him.
“You should leave the ranch until we find out what’s really going on. I don’t want to hurt you…accidentally.”
“You won’t.”
“I don’t know that, and neither do you.”
He ran out of the room and the door slammed behind him.
The instant he was gone, she felt hurt and wanted him back. Not that she was sorry she’d asked her questions. She was changing, willing to face things, willing to demand answers, determined not to be a people-pleaser every minute of her life. She thought about her uncle B.B. and aunt Mona. Nothing was what it seemed.
Wearily she began picking up her own clothes. A few minutes later, back in the safety of her own bedroom, Lizzy stripped again.
Too nervous to sleep, she eased herself into her big claw tub and took a long bubble bath hoping it would relax her. It broke her heart that Cole doubted himself so much he thought he might be capable of monstrous acts.
She couldn’t leave the ranch. Why couldn’t he see that she wanted to be a full-fledged person in her own right, and that to do that she had to stay? If she really was next on some murderer’s hit list, she had to lure the real killer into the open for Cole’s sake as well as her own.
How she loved him! How different he was than the bitter man he’d been when she’d first fallen in love with. And yet, she’d loved him then, too. She felt selfish about her feelings now, as if she had a right to them—to him. She couldn’t leave and risk losing him.
It wasn’t entirely pleasant to want him as she did. She ached to be near him all the time. She felt vulnerable and overly emotional.
Their relationship was long and complicated. They’d dated each other from the time they’d met until she’d graduated from college. He used to drive up to College Station on the weekends, when she’d attended A&M University. They’d been together every holiday when she’d come home. She sank underwater in the tub. When she emerged, she toweled her face off. Lying back and closing her eyes, her mind flashed back to the afternoon when she’d broken up with Cole—after her father had finally convinced her that all Cole Knight would ever want from any Kemble—even her—was revenge.
Like the other times he’d tried to name all the reasons why she shouldn’t be with Cole, her father had chosen his words carefully. “Your precious Mr. Knight can’t live with the loss of Black Oaks Ranch. Hell, girl, maybe I couldn’t live with it, either, if I was him. But mark my words—he doesn’t love you. He feels dispossessed and humiliated.”
“He does, too, love me.”
“No. He’s just using you to recoup his family’s fortune and to restore the Knight name.”
“I don’t believe you!”
“Just ask him the next time you’re with him. Unless you’re scared to.”
“I’m not scared. I know Cole. I don’t have to ask him!”
But later, when she’d met Cole at the ruins of the old Knight headquarters where they went sometimes to make love on a blanket in one of the deserted rooms, she’d refused to go into his waiting arms. Maybe her daddy’s words had finally worn her down. Maybe she wanted to put an end to his bad-mouthing Cole once and for all. Whatever the reason, that day she’d attacked. “My daddy said you wanted me because of the Golden Spurs. Is that true?”
“No, darlin’,” but he hadn’t met her gaze.
“Look at me. What did you want that first day when Pájaro ran away and you saved me?”
He hadn’t answered.
She’d swallowed. “Oh, God. You wanted the ranch.”
“Darlin’, you’ve got to understand. I’d just buried my father. I blamed your father for his death. Back then…”
“Back then, what?”
“All right. I was born wanting everything that had been ours. Then my daddy threw what was left away. Lizzy, I grew up on stories about how all of it should have been mine.”
“You used me.”
“I love you.”
“No, you love the ranch.” She’d hesitated. “Which do you love more—me or the land?”
“What the hell kind of question is that? That’s like asking me if I’d rather eat or breathe when I have to do both to live.”
“Choose. Let’s leave this place and go away together. To a big city. We’ll never come back.”
His dark face went white. “This is all I know. This is who I am. But I want you with me, always. This is the generation where we’ll make things right between our two families.”
When he’d reached for her, she’d run. From him, from her father, from the ranch, from everything and everybody, who made her feel like she wasn’t anything without the grand Kemble name.
For a long time after that it had seemed vitally important to be more than just a Kemble. She’d fled to New York, vowing that the next man she loved was going to love her—just her.
Ironically, Cole had left, too. Probably because he hadn’t seen a way to get what he really wanted with her gone.
Only he’d made good and she hadn’t. When he’d returned, he’d wasted no time in marrying Mia.
The water was cold when Lizzy stood up and got out of the tub.
Was Cole really so different now than he had been then? She thought so. Did he truly love her?
She wanted to believe he did. But, deep down was she really sure? She was willing to die for him, and yet she wasn’t willing to marry him.
Joanne’s hands froze when she touched the tangled satin slip in her drawer.
Someone had been in her room and gone through her things.
The slip fell through her fingers. For a long time she stood motionless over her open lingerie drawer. She was tidy to a fault. Tonight her lacy bras were scrambled with her panties and slips, all of which should have been neatly folded.
She would have to remind Sy’rai not to put her things away, that she would do it. But how strange that Sy’rai would forget when she never had before.
Joanne began to dig underneath the silky undergarments and then went utterly still as a second shattering realization dawned.
Electra’s journal was gone.
Her clean lingerie was neatly stacked on top her dresser, as always, where Sy’rai had left them. Sy’rai had not done this.
Someone else had invaded her privacy and stolen the journal.
Her blackmailer?
Why?
Lizzy heard the blasts from Sam’s and Cole’s rifles long before she reached the skeet range. She was licking the top off a chocolate ice-cream cone as she stepped out of the brush into the open just as a clay pigeon arced against a clear blue sky. Cole’s rifle tracked it for mere seconds before he pulled the trigger and blew it to bits.
“Good shot,” Sam said as clay sprinkled onto the brown grass.
“Your turn,” Cole challenged.
Sam blasted several clay pigeons in rapid succession. Lizzy wasn’t surprised. Sam had always been an expert shot.
“I remember when we used to ride around in Daddy’s pickup in the evenings with Hawk and Walker and Mia. You used to shoot everything that moved—skunks, raccoons, coyotes, even cute little bunny rabbits,” she said.
Sam laughed. “You used to cry, too. Except when I killed rattlers. We tried our best to toughen her up, Cole. We really did.”
“Didn’t work, though,” Cole said, his voice gentle.
“That’s about to change,” she retorted crisply. “Cole, I came out here today because I want you to teach me to shoot.”
He drew a deep breath. Suddenly she knew he was remembering their quarrel last night.
