When Hayes asked for a fast trial, Honor stood up. Today, she wore another slim black skirt and the same shoes, this time with a white silky blouse. Her hair was put up in the same twist.
“Your Honor, my client is a well-respected, responsible member of the community, with no criminal record. He is a business owner. His ties to his home are deep and strong. He is no flight risk, and the state’s case is entirely circumstantial. We ask for reasonable bail and a reasonable trial date, so that we may prepare and mount a vigorous defense of his innocence.”
“Thank you, Miss Babinot.” The judge, a weathered old man behind thick, black-rimmed glasses, waved her back to her seat. He leaned in and stared hard at Heath, then cleared his throat noisily.
“I must say I’m surprised to see a member of the Cahill family sitting before me, accused of a crime like this. It’s a gruesome murder.”
He stopped. The silence stretched long enough that it seemed like he was done. Heath turned to Honor, ready to ask what was going on. Then the judge cleared his throat again.
“Bail is set in the amount of two million dollars. Cash only. Lureen, what’s the calendar look like?”
A woman sitting at a desk near the judge’s bench tapped the keyboard of her laptop. “The first natural date would be October fifth, Your Honor.”
The judge nodded. “That’ll do, then. Trial in the case of Idaho v. Cahill is set for Monday, October fifth.” He knocked his gavel once, and it was done.
“Okay,” Honor said. “We’ve got three months to find the killer or at least another good suspect. That’s good.”
Heath couldn’t get his brain that far ahead. “Two million dollars cash?” He shook his head. “I…”
Honor laid her hand on his shoulder. “They’re working on it already. Your dad asked for a worst-case scenario, and I pulled that number out of my ear. It’s the largest cash-only bail I’ve ever seen, but they’re working on it.”
“But how?”
“That can’t be your worry right now. Right now, this is what’s going to happen: you’re going back into custody. Your father pulled some strings, and they’re going to hold you at the sheriff’s office for the next few days, while your family puts your bail together. So just hold on. We’ll have you home as soon as we can.”
Heath was exhausted. He hadn’t slept on the night of the Fourth, before his life had been shredded again, and he hadn’t slept in the cold cell last night. He’d lain on the unyielding metal cot, with its single flat pillow and its itchy blanket, and stared into dark space.
He did not want to go back to that cell. The thought that he faced a life lived that way chilled him. The thought that he might go home today, even for a little while, had kept him focused.
Gabe had not come to the arraignment. He didn’t know why, or if he’d even have wanted her to see this, but it would have given him strength to have walked into this courtroom and seen her sitting with his father and brother.
He sighed. “Okay. Can I see my family first?”
“No, I’m sorry. They won’t allow that now. But we’re all working as hard and fast as we can. Take heart, Heath. We’ll get you home.”
*****
It was Thursday before he saw his family or the Twisted C again. Sitting alone in the back seat of his father’s big black Silverado, Heath felt his heart kick angrily against his ribs as they drove through the ranch gate.
On the ride he’d learned a few things, so he wasn’t surprised when Logan, who was driving, pulled up in front of Emma’s house. Gabe had been staying there. According to Logan, Emma was serving as a gentle guard, keeping Gabe from bolting completely.
He didn’t want her kept against her will, but he wasn’t sorry she was still here. He needed the chance to sit in quiet and talk to her.
As he climbed out of the truck, the front door of his sister’s house flew open, and Emma ran out, kids and dog following right after. “Heath! Oh, honey!” She crashed into him and clenched him hard in her soft arms. “Oh, honey! Oh, honey!”
She was crying. Chester barked, showing his shepherdy concern.
He hugged her back. “I’m okay, Emsie. It’s okay.”
She nodded and stepped back, snuffling. The kids looked worried and confused, so he crouched and held out his arms. “Everything’s okay, kidlets. C’mere.” They went to him, and he held them tightly for a few seconds.
Logan and their father headed up to the big house; they expected him to go up as well after his reunion here. He’d get there eventually. Looking up at his sister as he held her kids, Heath said, “I need a big favor.”
“Anything. Anything at all.”
With a kiss to each head, he let the kids go and stood up. “I need you to give me Mama’s ring.”
His sister’s eyes turned into saucers. “What? No! That ring’s been in the Cahill family since settler days. If you’re worried about money, Dad and Logan are on it. You’ll be okay. We don’t have to pawn off family heirlooms.”
“It’s not for money, Em. I need the ring for Gabe.”
Emma stared blankly, blinking.
“Em? You understand?”
She blinked again and caught up. “Oh. Oh!” She frowned. “Oh honey, are you sure? She’s…she’s having trouble with all this. She’s pretty scared, for more reasons than she ought to be.”
“I know. If she turns me down, then I’ll give the ring right back to you. But if she doesn’t, I’d like her to wear Mama’s ring. Her hands are like Mama’s.”
Emma smiled. “Yeah, I noticed that, too—that light olive skin, those long, slim fingers. So graceful. Better than my chubby stubs.”
Heath grabbed his sister’s hand and lifted it to his lips. “You are beautiful. You look like Mama, too. If you wore the ring, I’d never ask you to give it up.”
“No, I don’t look like Mama. But you’re a love. You’re right. The ring should be worn, and if Gabe will wear it, that’s a great thing. Okay. I’ll get it. You want to come in and see her?”
“Yes. More than anything.”
She pulled on his hand. “Well, let’s go then. We’re gonna have a big dinner, too. Celebrate getting you back—and get those shadows out from under your eyes.”
The thought of sitting in the family dining room at the big house was now tainted by what had happened at Sunday breakfast, and Heath’s stomach rebelled against the idea of eating in there again. “Can it be here? Not up—not in…”
Understanding, Emma squeezed his hand. “Of course, honey. I’ll just call up there and tell the boys I’m cookin’ in my own kitchen tonight.”
*****
Emma left him in her living room with the kids and came back carrying a small white box, yellowed with age and made of bone. The Cahill ring was well over a hundred years old and had been worn by a succession of family matriarchs. An oval ruby flanked by two round diamonds and set deeply in an etched yellow-gold band, it was a quality piece of jewelry, but it wasn’t ostentatious.
“She’s in the guest room. She ran in there when the truck pulled up, and I guess she’s still cowering like a mouse.”
There was censure in Emma’s tone, and frustration, and Heath shook his head. “It’s okay. I understand why she’s scared.”
“She should know better. You would never do anything like they’re saying.”
Emma knew that wasn’t strictly true, but Heath didn’t point that out. “You don’t have a story like hers, Ems. You don’t know how something like that twists what you know.”
“Okay, then. I hope you untwist her.”
He kissed his sister’s cheek. “Me, too. Thank you for the ring.”
*****
Heath knocked on the guest room door. “It’s me.”
Before he could wonder if she’d answer, the door opened, and she stood there, looking small and young in jeans and a baggy white t-shirt, knotted at the waist. Christ, it was one of his own.
Wide, scared, old eyes met his.
“It’s okay, Gabe.”
“I
t’s not.”
“If you love me, if you believe me, then whatever happens, we’ll be okay.”
His wish would have been for her to answer that by jumping into his arms. He was keeping desperate hold of this one thread of life, and if he lost it, if he lost her, then he’d just crumble into dust.
But she didn’t jump into his arms. She took a step backward. “I…”
Holding himself together with sheer willpower and last wisps of hope, Heath asked, “Will you sit with me and talk?”
She hesitated only briefly, but long enough to make his stomach sour, before she nodded and let him into the room.
Emma’s style was aggressively cheerful. She liked vivid colors and floral patterns. Wes held her back a little in their bedroom and the common rooms of the house, but the rooms she considered her own were another story. Her kitchen was a wild riot of sunny yellow, grass green, and tomato red. The guest room—which was really her craft room with a fold-out sofa—made the kitchen look sedate. The color scheme here was pink, purple, and green.
The sofa sleeper was folded into its sofa shape, and Gabe sat on an end, surrounded by pastel fake-fur throw pillows. She pulled one of them onto her lap and hugged it to her belly. Like a fluffy shield.
Heath pulled Emma’s desk chair over and sat backward on it, straddling the backrest.
He still hadn’t slept more than thirty or forty minutes a night. He was exhausted and hurting in mind and body. He was deeply afraid of the future—that which was far ahead and that which was right in front of him. He didn’t know if he could manage a full-bodied discussion of all that was between them. He didn’t know if he could withstand her making any accusations or explaining how she could doubt him.
He knew all those answers, anyway. It wasn’t hard to understand why she would doubt him. It was desperately hard to accept, but easy to understand.
So, rather than open a discussion that could range far and wide, into dark, painful places, Heath pushed his hand into his pocket and pulled out the bone box.
A crease split the space between Gabe’s arched brows as Heath set the box on the flat of his hand and held it up but not out to her. She raised her eyes to his. God, he hated the pain and fear he saw there. He hated that he could be so easily connected in her mind to the loss of her family. He hated all the ways that he had forged that connection himself.
But he stayed his course. “Before all this happened, you and I had a serious discussion. I made you a solemn promise. And we made some choices, some decisions, about our future.”
She dropped her eyes, looking down at her lap, and he reached out with his free hand and pushed her chin up.
“I’m not asking you not to have questions that need answers. I’m not telling you I won’t give you every single answer you need. I’m not saying that I haven’t fucked up, or that I will never fuck up again. I’m not expecting you not to be scared, or sad, or anything you need to feel. I understand.
“But Gabe, I will tell you three things: One—I love you. I’ve never loved anyone like I love you. What I felt for Sybil, even at its very best, was nothing like this. Two—I want to marry you. I hope I already made you pregnant, but even if I didn’t, even with everything hanging over us right now, I want to keep trying. I want to live like we can have the future we want, because—three—I did not break my promise. I did not kill Brandon. I didn’t leave the ranch Saturday night.”
A tear fell from the corner of her eye and rushed down her cheek, hitting the seam of her closed lips. She ignored it and remained silent, staring.
“I told you three things. I have one thing to ask you: please believe me. If you love me, if you believe me, we’ll be okay. No matter what happens.”
Another tear dropped off her jaw and hit the pink puff of pillow in her arms. Heath picked up the bone box and opened it, then set it back on his flat hand. This time he held it out to her.
“This was my mother’s ring, and my great-grandmother’s before her, and a couple more greats before that. If you believe me, you don’t have to say anything at all. Just wear this ring. Marry me. Be my family.”
She didn’t move. More silent tears fell and dropped from her face, and she stared at the ring. Heath felt sick with tension, and his arm wanted to shake, but he forced his will up and held steady.
“I’m so scared,” she finally whispered, barely giving the words sound or shape.
“I know, little one. So am I. But I love you, and I know I’m innocent, and that will keep me strong. If you love me, believe me. Take the ring.”
Another long, still silence rattled his bones. And then, at last, Gabe unwound her arms from around that silly pillow. She lifted her hand and took the box. Heath could have wept with fragile relief.
She held the box cupped in both her hands and stared down at it. He couldn’t see her eyes, couldn’t read the story they’d tell.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
Unable to sit still any longer, Heath got up from the desk chair and went to Gabe’s side. She didn’t seem to notice the change. She had her hair back in a single ponytail—she always wore a black elastic band around her wrist and often in any day, her hair would end up caught back like this—and Heath stroked the long, wavy puff that lay on her back.
“Gabe. Please. Do you love me?”
She nodded at once. “I do. I love you so much. It hurts all the time now. That’s why I’m so scared.” She turned and let him see her eyes. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t. Even if the worst thing happens, you will be here, with my family—our family—and we will be together, even if it’s only in our hearts. But right now, I want—I need—to live the life I have. Do you believe I didn’t do this thing? Do you believe I’ve kept my promise?”
She bent her head and started to weep in earnest, and Heath found a new depth to his despair. But then she nodded. “I do,” she gasped. “I believe you.”
He pulled her into his arms, and the slight weight of her, the simple fact of her body in his arms, settled his heart. “It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d had to tell Gabe a truth before he could believe it himself.
PART FIVE
Chapter Seventeen
Submerged in an ocean of blood, Gabby watched as her father drove the knife, long as a sword, into her mother. Again and again and again he stabbed, her mother’s body rocking back and forth as the blade sank with force into it and was pulled with force from it. Again and again and again and again. She stared at Gabby, her arm stretching out, reaching for her, stretching farther and farther but never closing the distance between them.
Daddy, no, Gabby tried to yell, but her mouth, her nose, her chest were full of blood. She was drowning in blood.
Her father paused in his exertions, and his head swiveled in her direction as if on a rusty gear. When he faced her, he wasn’t her father anymore.
Heath pulled the knife from the bloody mass lying beneath him. He pointed it at her, and blood and clumps of gore dripped from the blade.
“You weren’t supposed to be here. Why are you here? Why are you here?”
Gabe’s eyes flew open as she sucked in a deep breath that felt like her first in hours. Before she could release it in the scream that wanted to come, she slammed her hands over her mouth.
The first night she’d had that dream, Sunday night, she’d shrieked like a banshee and had Emma and her whole family, even the dog, standing at the end of the sofa bed. Wes had been holding a rifle. From then on, she’d caught herself like this and lain staring at the beamed ceiling of the guest room until her heart and breath could find their normal place.
But there were no beams above her this time. Just flat white space—and a ceiling fan she knew well.
Heath’s house. Her house, now. Their bedroom. Heath was home. He slept at her side.
She’d spent the past few days sleeping in Emma’s guest room because she’d had no other choice. Witho
ut ever saying so or being anything but sweet and nurturing about it, Emma and Wes had kept her prisoner in their house.
Ever since Emma had come into Heath’s house on Sunday afternoon and found her sitting on the bed with her empty duffel bag beside her.
Except for a consuming storm of horror, Gabe could barely remember Sunday. She remembered breakfast, and she remembered the sheriff interrupting. She remembered standing at the entry to the big, stately living room and hearing what had happened.
She remembered the flashes of images that had blazed through her brain: Heath beating Brandon Black, that fierce, blank look of hate and purpose on his face, the way he was insensible to everything around him, fighting through the pull of strong men to keep going, the way Black’s body flopped and rocked with each blow. Heath standing afterward in his blood-spattered clothes, holding out to her a hand that dripped with blood. Heath kneeling at the side of the tub, swearing that he was done with Black, that he would never hurt her, that he wasn’t like her father. Waking alone in the night, his side of the bed cool, and the confused worry she’d felt as she’d walked through the empty house. Finding him on the porch, the same bloody clothes now also filthy with dirt and grime, as if he’d been rolling on the ground.
She remembered the horror of knowing the truth of his guilt. She remembered the utter devastation of watching him pulled away from her with his hands cuffed behind him. She remembered the sound of the words Heath Cahill, you are under arrest for the murder of Brandon Black.
She remembered needing to run.
And little else.
She could recount the way the day had transpired: Running to the house and pulling her duffel from the closet, then simply freezing at the sight of the little frame on the nightstand, the one that held that silly, out-of-focus picture of Heath laughing at something Logan had said and her gazing up at him, and being unable to fill the bag with her things. Emma following not long after her and sitting with her on the bed, talking to her in soft, soothing tones, convincing her somehow to go across the road for just a minute, just to take a breath. Finding herself pulled into the movements of Emma’s family until it was dark and late, and Emma had made up the sofa bed.
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