Branded

by Vivian Vaughan

  But she couldn’t look back at Trevor. She couldn’t depend on him. He would be no help at all. He would destroy her again, what was left after his last go at the Kimbles. She gripped her hands in tight fists, willing her anger to return.

  Then she saw the cross lying amid the mail that needed sorting. The lapis-studded silver cross she had taken from her niece Sophie earlier.

  Sophie, one more victim of the man who stood before her. At twelve, Sophie was entirely too much like Jacy for comfort. With her mother’s beauty and her father’s height, Sophie sported a headful of shiny black hair, eyes like black opals, and stood barely an inch shorter than Jacy. Her proportions would soon support her claim to womanhood. A fact that only added to Jacy’s growing list of concerns.

  With Drummond’s absence and the missing letters swirling through Jacy’s head, Sophie had chosen this morning to come to breakfast attired in her aunt’s doeskin riding habit, the only garment of any worth Jacy had saved from their former life.

  Since Mari had already left for Mass, the parenting fell to Jacy. She seized the reins in both hands. “March right back in that room and change clothes, young lady.”

  “Aunt Jacy, please let me wear this.” Sophie preened in the butter-colored costume. “It fits.” An altogether unnecessary statement if Jacy ever heard one.

  But she had saved this garment for one special purpose. When she returned to Arizona to spit in the eye of those who wronged them, she could not go attired as a peasant. Pragmatically, she realized the likelihood of being able to purchase fine clothing anytime soon was slim to none.

  “You know the bargain, Sophie. If you want this outfit when you turn sixteen, I’ll give it to you.” Four years away. Surely they would be home in four years. “Not a day sooner.”

  “I’ll be too big for it when I’m sixteen,” the girl pouted.

  Jacy bowed her neck and dug in her heels. “Unless you mind me this minute, Sophie, you won’t reach sixteen. Change clothes, then gather the eggs before time for school.”

  “It’s Todd’s turn to gather—”

  When the object around Sophie’s neck caught the morning light, Jacy lost what little control she had left. Anger flashed through her like a grease fire. She jerked the lapis-studded cross from the child’s neck, snapping the delicate silver chain. She felt herself burn from the inside out.

  “Go,” she instructed Sophie, her eyes on the cross, her mind conjuring memories that she was becoming less and less skilled at holding at bay. She hadn’t touched this cross in five years.

  She shouldn’t have kept it. Yet some tiny vulnerable spot deep inside her wept at the sight of it. At the loss it represented.

  Trevor had given her the cross. For exactly what reason she had never been certain. Now the reason didn’t matter. In the final analysis all that mattered was that the man betrayed her, betrayed her family, destroyed the Kimbles in one fell swoop, as surely as if he had lined them up in front of an adobe wall and gunned them down.

  “Go, Sophie,” she repeated, clutching her hands to keep from slapping her startled niece. She willed her anger to subside, but hurt welled from deep within. She had never felt so lost, so wounded, as though the points of the cross had torn open that soft inner core, exposing her as the most vulnerable of the whole wretched lot. “Get dressed,” she ordered bitterly. “Then gather the eggs. If you ever want anything pretty again, you’ll have to work for it.”

  She wished she had thrown the cross away. Inhaling several deep breaths she strove to still the insidious trembling that had taken hold of her, to quiet her anger, to hold off the fear.

  She couldn’t fall apart, not now. Neither could she break the spirit of this family. Against her will, against her very nature, she had become the worst sort of shrew.

  And standing before her was the man who caused it all.

  Fury swamped Jacy. Fury and desperation. She stared through blurred vision at the silver cross. Then, without thought or warning, she scooped it up and flung it at him.

  “Get out,” she cried.

  Startled, Trevor picked the object out of midair. Recognition dawned instantly. He studied it a moment, surprised and somehow deeply moved. He looked back to Jacy.

  Discomfited, she held his gaze, striving to conceal her humiliation at being caught with that cross near at hand. She hadn’t touched it in five years. Now he would think—

  His heart pounded with a deep, insidious yearning while his eyes probed hers, searching for signs of reciprocal emotion. But he saw only hatred, hatred embedded in a tiredness he had seen only once before in his life.

  In his mother. Jacy Kimble, fallen from grace and fortune, reminded him of his mother. His wearied, forlorn, dead mother. Guilt for his part in this tragedy overwhelmed him. He countered it the only way he knew how—with an acerbic grin.

  “Guess that answers my question,” he whispered harshly. “You haven’t forgotten me.”

  “I will never forget you,” she vowed. “I will hate you as long as I live. Get out and take that damned cross with you. And stay away from my family. Stay away from this house. Stay away from me!”

  Silently, unmoving, he returned her stare with eyes as hard and cold as she had ever seen them. He almost ruined them once. Now he had returned to finish the deed. “I mean it, Trevor. If I see so much as a hair on your head, I will turn you in to Constable Selman.”

  Trevor’s gaze never wavered. “I don’t doubt it, Jace. You always were—”

  “Aunt Jacy! Aunt Jacy! Come quick! That ol’ rooster is chasing Soph—” Six-year-old Carter’s words and feet came to a halt at the same time. Jacy watched him gape at Trevor.

  “Who are you?” the boy asked with the openness of children the world over. Her breath caught, even as she grabbed Carter and drew him to her skirts. Alarmed, she sought Trevor’s gaze.

  She saw when he recognized the boy, who had been little more than a year old when Trevor and Hunter were sent to Yuma. Trevor had been all thumbs around the baby. Every time Marielena insisted he hold the child, Trevor replied, “Wait’ll he grows up, Mari, I’ll teach him to track lions.”

  To Jacy he admitted, “Carter’s the first kid I ever saw live to be a year old.” His mother, before her death when Trevor was sixteen, had lost four infants, ranging in age from birth to eight months.

  Jacy watched it all flash through Trevor’s mind now. The pain, the emptiness, the guilt. She saw it; felt it. Oh, Lord! Did painful memories never die? Then he flexed, bending a knee.

  “So you’re Carter?” he was saying.

  The instinct for survival struck Jacy with the force of an earthquake. “No!” She pushed the startled child’s face into the folds of her worn skirt, hiding his inquisitive black eyes from the man she feared.

  Trevor’s heart pounded at the rebuke in her voice. For a moment, just a moment, he was back in prison, where orders were shouted and retribution exacted. He found her gaze, read her fear, her terror, while Jacy saw reflected in his earnest expression all the pain she had experienced these past miserable years.

  Without breaking eye contact, he flipped his hat to his head, adjusted it to one side, hiding the scar that reminded her of the evil he had done.

  Not that she would ever forget, could ever forget.

  “Okay, Jace,” he said softly. “I’m gone.” With a lingering thrust to her heart with those intense brown eyes, he turned and walked away.

  She watched him go, still clutching Carter to her side without being fully aware of it. Her arms quivered and her heart pounded. Finally the child wriggled free.

  “Who was that man, Aunt Jacy?”

  Fear strangled Jacy. What would Trevor do now? She must protect her family.

  “Was that John Wesley Hardin?”

  “No, Carter.”

  “Well, who was he?”

  Kneeling, she combed fingers through the child’s spiky black hair, then straightened the collar on his salt-sack shirt. “No one you will ever know, darling.” Stuffing the shir
ttails into his duckins, she kissed his forehead, his child-smooth forehead, unscarred, unbranded.

  If it took everything she had, Jacy vowed anew, she would see that these innocent children grew up unmarred by the terrible wrong Trevor had done this family.

  She hugged the precious child. The few small pleasures she had known the past five years had come from Carter, watching him grow, seeing him learn the simplest things—to run and jump, to talk, to reason. The world was forever new to the child, and his innocence opened new vistas for her. Listening to him prattle about a cactus blossom or a bird feather or an ant trail, she often wondered what it would be like if he were her child. She couldn’t love him more.

  Yet, the fact remained that he wasn’t hers. She was childless and likely to remain so. She didn’t dwell on such things; she couldn’t afford to until the problems facing them were resolved; until she succeeded in getting Hunter a new trial; until they returned to Arizona.

  Arizona. Plans to return home to the ranch, the Diamond K, kept Jacy going when all else failed. If it were the last thing she ever did, she would spit in the eye of those who drove them away.

  Revenge. Her heart cried for it. She hadn’t known how much until she saw Trevor Fallon standing in her doorway. She would have his heart on a pole!

  But the insidious fascination that had always spread inside her at sight of him lingered still. Seeing him, hearing his voice, feeling his presence even as she hungered for his touch. Trevor’s appearance rocked her as nothing had in five years. Now he had gone, leaving her destitute.

  But not nearly as destitute as they would all be if he found Drummond. The thought came like a bolt from the sky and slashed her with cold terror. Trevor wanted to see Drummond. Would he search out her father on his own?

  Of course, he would. He had come here, hadn’t he? Hounded by the law from Arizona to Texas, he had waltzed into this stage station for all the world like a respectable citizen, not an escaped murderer. He had come to town to see Drummond, and he would see him. She must count on that.

  Unless she stopped him. Rushing to the back door, she called, “Sophie! Time for school. Come walk with Carter.” Then to Carter, “Fetch your school bag. Sophie will walk you to school.”

  “By ourselves?”

  “Yes, darling. I have to find Grandpa—”

  “Todd’s looking for Grandpa,” came Sophie’s sulky voice from the doorway.

  Jacy’s patience snapped. “Well, he isn’t back, is he? I thought you wanted to be treated like a grownup. Lesson number one: grownups do not shirk responsibilities.”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it.” With that Sophie disappeared into the bedroom, her faded twice-turned skirts switching in protest.

  When Jacy glanced back, tears were rolling down Carter’s little cheeks. She knelt again. “What is it, darling?”

  “Tha…tha…that man. Is he gonna take Grandpa and put him in prison?” He rubbed his eyes with tight fists.

  Feeling as if her heart might break, Jacy gently tugged his hands away. “Of course not. What made you think that?”

  “They took Papa. And Uncle Trevor.”

  “I know.” Jacy pulled him close, trying to submerge the anguish she always felt when the children spoke of Trevor. Against her vehemently expressed wishes, Mari taught the children to pray for both their father and Uncle Trevor. “No one’s going to take Grandpa,” she assured Carter. “And your papa will be home soon. I promise.”

  Hugging the child to her bosom, she felt his delicate little body sob against her chest. “Don’t think about that man,” she told him. “Pay attention in school so you can grow up to be a doctor or a teacher or whatever you like.”

  “What if I want to be a sheriff?”

  “That’ll be wonderful.”

  “Then you’ll have to put Todd in prison when he kills a whore,” Sophie retorted, coming into the room.

  Jacy glared at the girl but held her tongue. Sophie was crying for attention, that was all. Surely she would soon outgrow this difficult stage.

  Surely both of them would outgrow, or outlive, this dismal stage. “Study hard, Sophie.”

  “Come on Carter.” Sophie took her little brother by the hand. “Let’s go to school.”

  “Don’t dawdle,” Jacy called after them, gripped now by a new fear. Carter hadn’t recognized Trevor, but Sophie surely would. “Hold Carter’s hand the whole way. And don’t talk to strangers. Don’t even look at them.”

  “Aunt Jacy! You gave me a job. Let me do it.”

  Jacy sighed. What made her think she wanted children? She watched the pair until they disappeared over the hill.

  Silence fell around her; the heat closed in. Her reflection earlier in the day had been wrong. Everything that could go wrong in one day hadn’t. Not by a long shot.

  Trevor Fallon was back in her life.

  Two

  By the time Pedro arrived for the mail, Jacy was fit to be tied. She hitched a ride on the mail wagon as far as Fort Bliss, which cut a couple of miles off her walk to the heart of El Paso. She still had several miles farther to walk to reach San Jacinto Plaza, where she expected to find Drummond passed out on a park bench.

  Several miles alone, the one thing she did not need. Time alone to think, an activity she avoided whenever possible. Now, with Trevor’s presence humming through her body, her mind returned to the past. To the harm this man had done her family, to the harm he could still do them. Her fears multiplied.

  Fear for Drummond, whose mind was so fragile; fear for the children, who had already been hurt too much. And for Todd. Todd was far too rebellious for his own good. An escaped murderer would be high on Todd’s list of admirable people. To say nothing of the bond he had to Trevor. Five years ago, at eight, Todd had haunted Trevor’s and Hunter’s every footstep. Mari had taught him to call the man uncle and to pray for him.

  Yes, Jacy’s fear was perhaps greatest for Todd. Except for herself. It wasn’t physical fear she felt for herself, although at times her anguish felt physical. Nor was it fear of losing her mental strength. Her determination was strong. She would not give in to her feelings, even though that small inner core where she was so vulnerable still wept and rejoiced by turns.

  He was back.

  Yes, he was back, and she must remain vigilant for her family. Forewarned, she could protect them. As for herself, she would pretend Trevor had never returned. Which, she realized, was akin to pretending the sun had not risen in the sky.

  She knew he had seen her innermost feelings, as she had seen his. By some unkind quirk of fate, they were attuned to each other in ways she had never experienced with anyone else. Trevor, in the old days, professed to have never been so acutely attuned to another person, either.

  She chastised herself for not anticipating his return. She had known he escaped; she should have been prepared for him to find them.

  Only the day before, Todd had brought home news of Trevor’s escape. Her first reaction then, as it had been this morning, was to rejoice. Her heart longed for him. He was free. He would come to her. She would no longer be alone.

  But, also as today, reason soon returned. Trevor knew what he had done to Hunter, to all the Kimbles. He would not come within ten miles of any of them.

  Especially not being wanted by the law. The authorities would expect him to come to them. Indeed, Constable Selman arrived to question them not an hour after Todd brought the news.

  They satisfied Selman that a rift existed between Trevor and the Kimbles. She hoped.

  As for Trevor’s claim that he had been purposely set free, Jacy had never heard of anything so ridiculous. A lie, nothing more and for whatever absurd reason, from a man who five years ago professed to never stretch the truth.

  “If a feller can’t own up to his actions and face the consequences, he oughtn’t to have done ’em in the first place.”

  The trial proved those boastful claims false. But why would he lie about escaping? To gain her help for Hunter? What could an
escaped convict do for Hunter? The only thing Trevor could have done for Hunter, he should have done five years ago. In court.

  He should have told the truth.

  Walking the caliche hills alone, her mind returned to the past, to the last time she had spoken with Trevor. It was before the trial, before she learned of the terrible circumstances surrounding the murder of her father’s longtime mistress, Ana Bowdrie.

  Upon hearing that Trevor and Hunter had been arrested, Jacy hurried to the jail in Gila Bend, where the men were being held in separate cells. She visited them both.

  Hunter was unperturbed, as befitted the son of Drummond Kimble. He was innocent. Drummond would straighten things out. Ana’s death had shaken Hunter, for both he and Jacy were fond of the woman. They never saw her as a threat, since their mother died giving birth to Jacy. No motive there.

  Hunter insisted that by the time he arrived on the scene, Ana was dead. He lifted her in his arms to be certain. That’s why her blood was on his clothes.

  It made sense. Hunter had gone to Ana’s house in response to a message, which he turned over to authorities. The message, written in Ana’s own flowery script, was a terse command: My house at two o’clock today. Your father’s political career is at stake.

  Trevor, too, received a letter. The scene where he told Jacy about it remained vividly etched in her brain, and would be for all time, for it was at that moment she knew she had fallen in love with him.

  She truly saw red, she was so jealous.

  “You were having an affair with my father’s mistress?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why would she send for you?”

  “How the hell do I know?”

  They gripped the bars from either side—Jacy from outside the cell, Trevor from inside. His hands above hers, their skin touched. Their anguished, angry gazes held.

  “I didn’t kill her, Jace.”

  “But you were sleeping with her.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would you think—”