Ransom My Heart

by Gayle Wilson

  “I don’t want your money, Mr. Kincaid. I haven’t earned it. Despite what your daughter said, this was a fiasco from the beginning. The only reason we got Amanda back is that we got lucky. That’s all. Just sheer blind luck. There’s no charge for luck.”

  He nodded to Sam and then minutely to Samantha, his eyes again holding hers for only a second. He moved past them, walking across the tarmac in the direction Jason Drake was already moving in. They both turned to watch the two figures grow smaller, eventually swallowed up by the heat rising in distorted waves from the runway.

  “What’d you tell him?” Sam asked.

  She shook her head, still watching Chase. “Nothing,” she said finally, her voice almost a whisper. “He didn’t give me a chance to explain. I don’t know what I would have said if he had. It seems you were right.”

  “Me?” Sam asked. “Right about what?”

  “You told me a long time ago that he had a right to know. You said that any man would want to know, no matter what the circumstances were. That was one more time I should have listened to you. One of many, I guess.”

  “He gonna make trouble?” Sam asked. He shifted Mandy’s limp body, settling her into a more secure position.

  “Not the kind you mean,” she said softly.

  The trouble Chase McCullar represented had already happened, the same trouble he’d always represented for her, and it wasn’t the legal kind. Not the kind Sam was worried about. Chase wouldn’t try to take Mandy away from her. She didn’t know why she was so sure about that, except maybe because she knew he hadn’t changed at all. He was the same man she’d fallen in love with so long ago. A man of honor, she thought. A man who had never deserved what she had done to him.

  Chapter Ten

  Once Chase reached the Kincaid house, he didn’t wait for Samantha and her father to arrive. He borrowed another vehicle, making his request to Sam’s assistant. Drake hadn’t asked any questions, his gray eyes this time full of something that looked almost like sympathy. The pickup he’d provided had a full tank of gas and a Texas road map in the pocket of the door.

  Chase didn’t need either. It wasn’t until he was on McCullar land that he stopped the truck. He pulled his aching body out of the cab to look down on the sweep of barren earth that met the silver ribbon of the river, winding against the backdrop of the brown hills of Mexico. Like a hurt dog, he had run home with his tail between his legs.

  He could see both McCullar houses from this vantage point. That was why he had come. A last look at what had once been his and Mac’s—their heritage. The little house he had built didn’t seem to have changed, at least not from up here. There were new outbuildings—stables, maybe—but the house itself appeared to be just the same.

  He couldn’t see enough detail of Mac’s place to make any judgment about what had happened there, but there were changes, he knew. Thinking about Jenny living there with someone besides Mac was hard. That was change enough. Something he wasn’t sure he could bear.

  He remembered thinking how one event could change your life. Like what had happened to Mac had changed his, changed it in ways he hadn’t even known about until now. His determination to take care of his family, to make sure Rio paid for what he’d done, had cost him Samantha. And Amanda. Even now, he wasn’t sure he could have done anything different, but he hadn’t been given the chance to decide.

  As it had in San Miguel del Norte, his vision blurred, the two houses almost disappearing behind the veil of stinging moisture. No need crying over spilt milk, his mother used to say. Or split lives, he guessed. It wouldn’t change anything. He still had a couple of jobs to do. One for Sam Kincaid. And one for himself.

  HE DIDN’T MAKE A conscious decision to end up at Doc Horn’s any more than he had consciously decided to drive to the bluff that looked down on the river. He had just ended up there, operating on instinct, maybe.

  Doc’s little clinic treated everybody within a thirty-mile radius—people from both sides of the border, no questions asked. Chase had gotten stitched up here more times than he could count. Most had been because of minor accidents on the ranch. He’d come here once when he’d gotten thrown from a horse his daddy had told him not to ride. And after a fight or two. Even after the beating Sam Kincaid’s rowdies had given him. Despite the rural setting, Doc did good work, as the faded white line on Chase’s temple proved.

  Chase was surprised when he staggered trying to get out of the truck and had to grab on to the door to keep from going down. He’d been running the last three days on pure nerve and adrenaline, and he guessed it was finally catching up with him. He’d get Doc to fix whatever was wrong with his shoulder and then he’d collapse in a bed somewhere for a couple of days before it was time to make the second delivery.

  There were a few people ahead of him in the waiting room. He sat down carefully in one of the cracked vinyl chairs and put his head back against the stained wall.

  Even the slightly medicinal smell of the building was the same. And the same feeling was twisting in his gut that he’d had the other times he’d come here—the feeling that he’d screwed up and he had better be prepared to pay the consequences. He used to sit here dreading having to face his father’s hair-trigger temper. This time he didn’t know exactly what he was dreading, or at least he wasn’t sure what he was dreading the most, he amended.

  “Well, if it ain’t my favorite patient,” Doc said.

  Chase opened his eyes and realized that the waiting room had emptied. He must have gone to sleep. God knew how much he needed it.

  “Just your most profitable,” he said.

  Like Sam Kincaid’s, Doc’s hair had somehow turned to snow while Chase had been away. He was a little more bent, his face a little more deeply lined, but his eyes hadn’t changed. Shrewd and kind, they were looking at him just as they had when he was about thirteen and had gotten himself mixed up in something they both knew his daddy would kill him for if he ever found out about it.

  “Yeah,” Doc agreed, “I been trying to figure out how I could make ends meet until you decided to come home.”

  That’s exactly what it feels like, Chase thought. Coming home. It might not always be a pleasant experience, but at least you knew you were where you belonged.

  “Come on in and let’s see what you’ve managed to do to yourself this time,” Doc suggested, pushing open the door of the small examination room.

  DOC’S SOUND EFFECTS hadn’t changed, Chase decided as he endured the examination. They were the same small humphs and sniffs he’d always made. Chase hadn’t realized how bad his chest and shoulder looked because he hadn’t changed clothes since he’d left Sam’s place on Saturday morning. The bruising was pretty nasty, vividly colorful, although some of it was already starting to fade to yellow around the edges. As Doc examined him, Chase could smell the faint miasma of stale clothing and his own perspiration.

  “I guess I should have grabbed a shower and a change of underwear before I came,” he apologized.

  “I’ve smelled worse in my day than a little honest sweat,” Doc said, his fingers gently manipulating Chase’s arm. “Most of my patients don’t even own a change of clothing. They got nothing but what they’re wearing when they get here and what they’re wearing’s usually still wet.”

  Doc treated a lot of illegals, some of whom didn’t plan on returning to the other side of the shallow river. Chase couldn’t blame them, although he knew that for most of the undocumented immigrants who came over the border, the States was no longer the land of milk and honey they’d anticipated. Too often they ended up working for wages American workers wouldn’t accept in jobs that nobody else wanted because they were dirty or dangerous. But nobody could blame them for trying—not him and certainly not Doc.

  He must have made some involuntary response to Doc’s last torturing manipulation because finally the doctor stepped back from the table. “I’m going to give you a shot and take a couple of X rays. Maybe then we’ll be able to figure out what to do
. If it’s any comfort, I don’t think I’ll have to shoot you.”

  Chase closed his eyes again when the old man left the room, lying back against the crackling white paper of the examination table. If Doc didn’t hurry, he knew he wouldn’t need a shot He’d be out like a light without it. Maybe Doc would let him spend the night here.

  He hadn’t thought until now about where he was going to spend the night. There wasn’t a motel around for miles, and he sure didn’t anticipate being able to drive. He’d had some experience with Doc’s idea of a little painkiller. Doc’s shots were both fast and potent.

  He decided he would worry about that later. Or let Doc. Let somebody. Right now he didn’t feel capable of making another decision. Not that he’d done too well lately making decisions. Like he’d confessed to Sam, the trip into Mexico had been a fiasco from the beginning.

  After the old man slipped the needle into his arm, the rest of the examination drifted by in a pleasant haze of medicated unawareness. He wasn’t completely out, just relaxed enough to feel free to cuss when it hurt. And it hurt pretty often. When he was through, Doc stepped back from the table again to look at his handiwork, which consisted of a cloth harness to immobilize his left arm.

  “Shouldn’t take more than a few days for that to start to heal. You’ll be more comfortable with the support.”

  “I wish I’d gotten that shower before you hog-tied me.”

  “You can slip your arm out long enough for that. Removing a couple of layers of dirt’ll probably help your feelings as much as that contraption. I expect what you could use most is a few hours of shut-eye. Jenny’ll see to that.”

  “Jenny?” Chase questioned as Doc’s hand steadied him down off the’high table.

  “I called her to come pick you up,” Doc said.

  “That’s what family’s for,” Jenny said softly from the doorway of the examination room. “Picking up the pieces. I guess I’ll just have to take Mac’s place when it comes to you.”

  Chase’s heart lurched, and he felt his eyes sting again, but he blinked the moisture away, hoping they’d believe it was just the effects of the medication.

  She was still Jenny, small-boned and gently curved. She had none of Samantha’s slender elegance. Her hair was cut short for convenience, with little regard for style. It was very dark, but the highlights, softly gleaming under the strong lamp of the examination room, were golden. Her eyes were wide and brown, surrounded by a fringe of impossibly long lashes. Her complexion was the smooth, flawlessly tanned perfection of a true brunette.

  Because she was so small and brown, Mac used to call her his Jenny-Wren when he wanted to tease her, but there was nothing birdlike about her. She was as tough as her pioneer ancestors, a perfect match, he’d always thought, for Mac’s quiet strength.

  “’Lo, Jenny,” he said.

  “Looks like you could use a little help,” she said.

  Her own eyes were misty, but it had been almost a year since they’d seen each other. He’d phoned her, just to check on her, but lately he hadn’t even done that. Too many exposed nerves.

  “I thought maybe Doc would let me stay with him awhile.”

  “You’re coming home with me, Chase McCullar,” Jenny said. “I’ve got plenty of beds and you know it.”

  “But they’ve all got lavender sheets,” he whispered.

  He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. The thought had just slipped past whatever control he had left. Maybe that was one reason he didn’t come home anymore. And of course, because Jenny’s house wasn’t really home. Not without Mac.

  He saw her glance at Doc, her dark eyes questioning. Maybe she’d just think the shot had made him loopy. Hell, maybe it had.

  “I like lavender,” he said, trying to fix it. That didn’t make sense, either, he knew, but he couldn’t think of anything else. Her lips began to tilt, and quick relief showed in her eyes.

  “That’s good,” she said. She moved across the room to slip her small body under his good shoulder. “Let’s get you home and into that bed, little cowpoke,” she suggested, her voice gently teasing.

  It was what Mac had called him when he was a kid, when he really wanted to get to Chase. Usually it drove him to throw a wild punch that his big brother blocked with the ease of practice and a longer reach. This wasn’t going to work, he thought, feeling his eyes burn again. He had always known he couldn’t come back.

  “I can’t,” he said, stepping away from her, again almost staggering. “I still got Sam Kincaid’s truck. I lost his money, but I still got his truck. Can’t afford to lose that.”

  It was all perfectly clear in his head, but again the quick meeting of the eyes of the other two let him know he wasn’t making much sense.

  “Doc can take care of the truck,” Jenny said. “You know you can’t drive, Chase, and Doc hasn’t got a bed that can hold you. You’ll be better off at my house.”

  Not our house, he thought. Not hers and Mac’s. My house. That was the reality. Jenny’s dating someone flitted through his brain, but he couldn’t think about that tonight Maybe tomorrow he could deal with the idea that someone had already taken his brother’s place.

  “Come on, Chase,” Doc said, putting his arm around his waist. “I’ll take care of Sam’s truck. I’ll run it over to you in the morning. You let Jenny take care of you. From the looks of you, somebody needs to start taking care of you.”

  In the end it was easier just to let them do what they wanted, and that was how he ended up spending the night again on lavender-scented sheets in the narrow bed he’d slept in for most of his life.

  AFTER HIS SHOWER, he had fallen into that bed and almost slept the clock around. When he finally woke, he found Jenny had laid some of Mac’s clothes out on the foot of the bed. They weren’t even too bad a fit, he realized with a trace of surprise. Apparently there wasn’t as great a size difference between him and his brother as he’d always believed. Just part of that big-brother syndrome, he guessed. But then Mac had always seemed larger than life to him. He still did.

  Jenny was in the kitchen when he walked in. He had slipped his arm back into Doc’s contraption, and he had to admit that it felt better that way.

  “Hungry?” Jenny asked, wiping her hands on the towel that had been lying on the counter beside the sink where she’d been cutting up potatoes. She poured a cup of coffee from the metal pot that was always warming on the back of his grandmother’s stove and set it down in front of him on the wooden table.

  “Maybe,” he said, easing down into the chair. He felt a little hungover, a little queasy, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. Maybe food would help.

  “Breakfast or supper?” she asked. Her eyes had considered the care he’d taken sitting down, but she didn’t ask how he was feeling. Jenny wasn’t the mother-hen type.

  “Whatever,” he said.

  “How about a sandwich?” she offered. “Just to tide you over till suppertime.”

  “That sounds good.”

  It was good, and he ate two before he quit. He didn’t know whether the black coffee or the food was responsible, but both the nausea and the grogginess had gradually disappeared.

  “Better?” Jenny asked, pouring him another cup and then putting the pot back on the stove.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Doc brought the truck by a while ago. You want to tell me how you ended up with Sam’s truck?” She pulled out the chair opposite his and sat down.

  “I did a job for Mr. Kincaid.”

  “It was Sam last night.”

  “I was doped up last night. I guess I forgot my place.” He hadn’t meant for the bitterness to be there, but it was. Even he could hear it.

  “But you did find Amanda,” she said. It wasn’t a question. Maybe he was still groggy because it took him a second to recognize the significance of that. Jenny knew what had been going on.

  “Yeah,” he said, “we found her. How the hell did you know about that?”

  “She�
�s all right, isn’t she?”

  “She seemed to be fine. Well enough to sing some damn song about a cat in my ear for about five hours,” he said.

  He hadn’t realized he was smiling. It was pleasant to remember that Mandy had held on to his neck, softly singing as he carried her. When he glanced up, Jenny’s dark eyes were filled with that same look that had been in the kidnapper’s. More compassion. He looked down at the coffee in front of him because he didn’t want to see it.

  “I don’t think she was any the worse for what happened,” he said.

  “That’s good.”

  “Of course, since I don’t have any way of knowing what she was like before, I can’t really say,” he added. He allowed his eyes to move up to focus on hers. The accusation he hadn’t voiced was in them.

  “I’m sorry, Chase, but I gave Samantha my word.”

  “How long have you known?”

  She hesitated, but Jenny hated’ deception, hated lying, so eventually she’d tell him the truth.

  “Almost…from the first. Since Mandy was born, I guess.”

  “You didn’t think you should mention it to me? The fact that I had a daughter?”

  “I told you. I gave Samantha my word.”

  He nodded. That hurt like hell. Not only had the Kincaids chosen to shut him out of his daughter’s life, but even Jenny had gone along with their decision, apparently accepting it as the right one.

  “Thanks for the bed and the food,” he said evenly, using his right hand to push himself up from the table.

  “You’re mad because I didn’t tell you.”

  “I guess I’m just a little…confused, maybe, about why nobody felt I had a right to know. Especially you.”

  “Samantha said you never called her. Not after…that night. The night Mandy was conceived.”

  “You couldn’t figure out why?” he asked. The bitterness was there again in his voice. He had done what he thought he had to do at the time. He had made those decisions based on the information available to him then. All Samantha had had to do was to tell him, and he’d have done what needed to be done there, too.