by Jill Gregory
“And your mother?” Bryony asked.
His face was shadowed as he stood tall and thoughtful, bare-chested in the glowing firelight.
“She tried to protect me, but she had enough problems of her own. She was a small, frail woman, and my father was a giant of a man. He was like a Texas longhorn bull—he’d charge over anything in his way to get what he wanted, and my mother had her hands full just trying to live up to what he expected of her, trying to please him and keep his temper from exploding. It wasn’t any easier for her than it was for me or Danny, though at the time, I didn’t always understand that.”
He turned abruptly to face Bryony, his voice sharp. “It wasn’t that my father was a bad man,” he told her forcefully. “He was a good man, a hell of an honest man, and not afraid of hard work. But he was strong. Maybe too strong. He had to rule everyone around him, and his word had to be law.”
Tossing the stub of his cigarette into the fire, he watched it disappear in a blaze of golden flames.
“I reckon I inherited most of his disposition. Right from the start, I hated being told what to do, how to behave. I fought him every inch of the way, and it was hell for both of us. Even though I was just a kid, I had every ounce of his stubbornness. We were just too alike to get along.”
“Yes. I understand,” Bryony said gently. She could picture him, a young, wild, unruly boy, filled with high spirits and determination, eager to make his own way in life. And she could see his father too, an older, stronger version of the son, accustomed to tyrannical power, to obedience from all those around him. Conflict was inevitable.
“Things came to a head when I was fifteen, and the War Between the States was heating up like a red-hot branding iron.” Jim grimaced. “It was 1861, and Texas seceded from the Union to join the Confederate States.”
“Was your family in favor of the secession?” she asked.
“Hell, yes. My father was violent in his opposition to Lincoln. He didn’t make it a practice to own slaves personally, but Texans, you know, are fiercely independent and he opposed any violation of what he felt to be his state’s rights in the matter.” He grimaced. “Naturally, I disagreed.”
Suddenly, he gave a short, mirthless bark of laughter. “Guess I was just a natural rebel, Bryony. You see, I rebelled against the rebels—or at least, against one rebel—my father. Though I’d like to think I was aware of some of the larger issues involved, too.”
With a sigh, he stared out the mouth of the cave across the vast stretch of barren plains.
“I reckon I was so hell-bent on being independent and free of my father’s influence that I had a natural sympathy for anyone shackled. You see, slavery rubbed me the wrong way right from the beginning. Soon after Texas seceded—in April of that year—Fort Sumter was attacked by the Confederates and Lincoln issued his call for troops. That’s all I needed to hear.” He shook his head. “I ran right off to join up with the Union forces.”
“But you were only a boy! Fifteen years old, no more, surely? You can’t mean that you became a soldier at that age?”
The smile he turned upon her was amused. “You’re forgetting, little tenderfoot, that we’re not talking about St. Louis or New York or Philadelphia. Out west, boys become men at an early age. I learned how to shoot a gun when I was nine. Rode my first wild bronco at eleven, and rode on cattle drives with the range hands from the time I was twelve. When I turned fifteen, it seemed only right and natural to become a soldier. And I was sure that by joining the Union Army I’d prove to my father that I was a man—free and independent.”
There was silence as she waited for him to continue, her eyes never leaving his face. When he did speak again, it was brusquely, as if he was in a hurry to conclude his story.
“Naturally, there was a tremendous split between me and my family. My old man and I had a violent argument the night before I left. He threatened to disinherit me if I carried out my plan to leave. He told me I could consider myself dead and buried if I turned against the Confederacy.”
His lips twisted. “That was probably the worst thing he could have said. At that point, wild horses couldn’t have kept me from enlisting. I didn’t write to a single member of my family all during the war, and they had no way of knowing whether I was dead or alive. Afterward, when I was a few years older and should have known better, pride kept me from contacting them.”
She gasped. “You mean you haven’t seen them since the day you ran away?”
“Nope. I never returned to the ranch,” he replied quietly. “But five years ago I wrote to my brother from a town in New Mexico, and he answered my letter with one of his own. He told me that my father had died a year after the war ended. He’d been speared by a longhorn during the fall roundup—the damn stubborn fool that he was, he always insisted on hitting the trail with the hands and he worked harder than any of them.”
By now, the morning’s faint light better illuminated the cavern, and Bryony could more clearly see the bitterness in Jim Logan’s eyes.
“My mother had died of the fever six months after he was buried,” he continued quietly. “Only Danny was left. In his letter, he begged me to come home. He said that on his deathbed, my father had repeatedly asked for me, that he’d wanted my forgiveness, my return to the family. He’d even...”
He broke off, his deep voice shaking momentarily with suppressed emotion. After a moment, he regained control, and continued in a low tone.
“He’d even written me into his will, leaving half of the ranch to me and the other half to Danny. He wanted us to own it and run it together.”
There was a brief pause, and Bryony waited for him to go on. He did so abruptly, turning his head to glare at her almost angrily. “I wrote back and refused, of course. I didn’t deserve my father’s forgiveness or his generosity—not after the years I’d spent hating him and punishing him by staying out of touch. As far as I was concerned, and still am, for that matter, the ranch belongs to Danny—all of it. I could never go back and live there again.”
“But it’s what your father wanted in the end, isn’t it?” Bryony murmured. “His final wish was for you to return to share the ranch with your brother.”
“I told you, I don’t deserve his forgiveness. If it wasn’t for my pigheaded pride I would’ve contacted him when the war was over—we’d have made up then and worked out our differences reasonably, man to man. But once he was dead, it was too late. Can’t you see that? He may have forgiven me, but I can never forgive myself!”
He began to pace about the cave again, while Bryony watched in silence.
Obviously, he was as stubborn now as he’d been as a boy. Stubborn, proud, angry.
And filled with pain.
All these years, he’d been living with this burden.
She drew a breath. “What did you do? When the war was over?”
He shrugged, and she realized that his anger was now coming under a rigidly disciplined control. The cool, careless mask was back in place; the vulnerability and sorrow she’d glimpsed might have been only a mirage.
Except that she had glimpsed it and she remembered it only too well. It had stirred her heart in a deep, powerful way—never to be forgotten.
“I traveled around the country with a chip on my shoulder and a gun in my holster, looking for trouble,” he replied. “I was only nineteen, but I’d seen a lot of men die in those four years of war, and it made me determined not to follow suit. I wanted to cram as much of life’s excitement as I could into every moment. After a few months of drifting, I joined some army friends up north and attended college for a few years, but I reckon my nature wasn’t suited to studying all the time. I grew restless, bored. Before long I hit the trail again, heading west, intending to make a name for myself.”
“As a gunfighter.” She was seeing him in an altogether new light today, and she wanted more than anything else to believe that he wasn’t the evil villain he thought himself to be.
“Yes, my innocent little tenderfoot, I i
ntended to make a name for myself as a gunfighter.” He met her gaze steadily.
“I’d always been quick with a gun, and the war helped me develop my skill. After it ended, I continued to practice diligently, and when I ventured back into the rugged territories of the west, I wanted to make men fear me, to watch them scatter like rabbits as I walked down the street, to show the world that I was a force to be reckoned with.”
Noting her dismay, he strode toward her. “That shocks you, doesn’t it? You hate the fact that I chose this profession, that I sought out the notoriety and fearsome reputation you obviously deplore. Well, little tenderfoot, that’s what I did—I earned a name for myself as a tough, fast, hired gun, and I killed men who had to be killed, and lived the kind of life I wanted to live. I hired out my gun to men who needed protection, or who wanted help in a range war. I went from town to town, frequenting saloons and gambling houses, bedding every good-looking woman who took my fancy. I was a loner, allowing no one to come close to me, to know me or my past, but I did just as I damn well pleased and took no one’s happiness into account but my own.”
Pausing, he reached down a strong hand, and pulled her to her feet so quickly that the buckskin jacket slid away and she faced him naked. Her long, slender body glowed with the luminosity of a pearl in the morning light as his narrowed gaze traveled over her, coming to rest at last upon her face.
“But there’s one thing I didn’t do despite all the rest,” he said in a low, intense voice that held her attention. His hands tightened on her shoulders.
“I never killed an innocent man. The people I shot were rustlers or bullies or murdering thieves. I was hired to fight them. To stop them.”
He drew in a breath. “Sometimes, it’s true, Bryony, I was drawn into a gunfight with other men who sought to gain a reputation for themselves by killing the infamous Texas Jim Logan.” He shook his head.
“As my reputation grew, those kind of incidents increased—unfortunately for the two-bit cowpokes who wanted to kill me just to make a name for themselves.” His lips compressed tightly. His eyes burned into hers.
“I was forced to kill them in order to survive. But I never killed a decent, law-abiding man, or used my gun against one. The only men who’ve had cause to fear me are those who operate outside the law—or those who’re stupid or loco enough to force me into a fight. Anything you’ve ever heard to the contrary is hogwash.”
“If that’s true,” Bryony said softly, “then why did you kill my father?”
There was a long, deep silence.
Releasing her shoulders at last, he gazed down at her, his eyes hardening.
“Ah, yes, your father.”
Bryony didn’t move a muscle. She’d listened to his tale with compassion, wanting desperately to understand what had driven him to a life of violence. She thought she understood his inner unhappiness, the bitter cynicism beneath the cold, indifferent facade, but she couldn’t really reconcile herself to the life he’d chosen, to a profession that violated every principle in which she believed.
She’d been raised to abhor violence—he practiced it almost daily.
She believed in being a vibrant part of the world around her, while he was a loner, a man who sought no friends, who lived only for his own pleasure.
Jim Logan commanded the fearful respect of those around him who were intimidated by his stunning skill with a gun and by his ruthless reputation. But she’d been raised gently, taught at boarding school to believe in a sacred love that she would one day find with a perfect man.
He was a libertine who used women only to satisfy his physical needs.
She could sympathize with him, and regret the years of pain and guilt he’d suffered, but how could she ever approve of him? Or of the violent life he’d chosen for himself?
Their moment of closeness vanished, and she immediately sensed that the barrier which would forever divide them had been erected once again.
She knew she had to forget the wondrous pleasure they’d known together last night, as well as the intimacy they’d shared in the cave this morning when they’d spoken from their hearts as lovers and friends.
But first... first she would know the answer to her question.
Why had he killed her father?
“Tell me something, Bryony.”
His curt tone sliced into her thoughts. “How well did you know Wesley Hill?”
“What do you mean? He was my father!”
“Yeah, I reckon I know that—but how well did you know him? What kind of a man was he? How much did you really know about him?”
Stunned by his questions, she moved away from him and began to dress hurriedly, all too aware, suddenly, of her own nakedness. When she’d pulled on her dusty jeans and her shirt, and had finished struggling with her boots, she stood straight, tossing her dark hair and sending a fiery glance his way.
“If you must know, I spent most of my time in boarding school after my mother died. I was quite young when I lost her, and I didn’t know my father very well. He was quite busy, of course—involved in his investments and things.”
Her tone was a shade too loud and too shrill, belying the calm composure she was trying so hard to convey.
“One can scarcely expect him to have made time for a very young daughter, who must have been a burden to him. Can one?” She swallowed and went on defiantly. “But I do know that he built his ranch into one of the largest, most prosperous spreads in the territory, and that everybody for miles around respected and liked him.” Her chin lifted. A glint of fire returned to her eyes.
“Now, since I’ve answered all of your questions, are you ready to answer mine?”
Surprisingly, her incensed tone didn’t seem to anger him. His light blue eyes seemed to penetrate right through her, detecting much more than Bryony had meant to reveal.
Jim felt his body tense. In those few, brief, angrily defensive words she’d flung at him, he’d glimpsed for an instant the beautiful, lonely young girl shut away at boarding school. And shut out of her ambitious father’s busy life.
He’d seen the hurt and loneliness she tried to keep locked inside her, even when she immediately glossed over her feelings, trying to pretend they didn’t exist at all.
But there was no question in his mind that she’d been deeply hurt by Wesley Hill’s neglect.
Not for the first time, he found himself cursing the man.
Then he met Bryony’s gaze as she awaited his reply, and he wished like hell that he didn’t have to be the one to tell her, to hurt her more.
Damn, she already hated him enough for what he’d done. Now he’d only be adding to that resentment. His mouth twisted into a bitter smile.
Well, what difference did it make? She’d have to be told eventually—for her own safety. It was best she learned the truth right now.
“Well, then, I reckon it’s only fair. You have a right to know why I killed your father.” He drew a breath and plunged ahead.
“Daisy Winston was a friend of mine. She was just a kid. Not much older than you, and all alone in the world.” He paused, his eyes somber, then forced himself to speak the words.
“Your father murdered her.”
His words hit Bryony like a slap across the face.
“No! I don’t believe you. You’re... lying!”
“Bryony, it’s the truth.”
“You’re making this up as an excuse for shooting him!” Fury surged through her as she took a step toward him. “My father and Daisy Winston were lovers! Lovers!” she gasped. “Why would he kill her? It’s ridiculous! You’re lying to me because you think I’m a stupid schoolgirl who will believe whatever you say, but you’re wrong! I don’t believe a word of it!”
“I’m telling you the truth. If you weren’t such a damned stubborn little fool, you’d stop and listen to what I have to say.”
Impatiently, he pushed her down onto the blanket near the fire. “Sit right there! You’re going to hear me out whether you like it or not. It’s su
re not a pretty story, but it’s true—and you need to hear it. I swear, Bryony,” he added as she seemed about to spring up again. “I’ll hogtie you if I have to, but one way or another you’re going to sit still and listen to me!”
His words only intensified her rage, but she knew he’d carry out his threat, so she sat fuming upon the blanket, glaring at him with an expression of loathing. Sweeping her hair back from her face she spoke between clenched teeth.
“Go ahead then and talk, damn you. But I’ll never believe a word of what you say.”
“I reckon that’s up to you. But Wesley Hill was a rustler, a thief, and a murderer. He and Matt Richards had been working together for years, rustling the smaller ranchers off the range, building up their own herds with stolen cattle at the expense of their neighbors. Those two stopped at nothing to line their own greedy, thieving pockets.”
“How dare you,” Bryony breathed. She made an uncontrollable movement to rise and face him, but he swiftly knelt beside her and seized her by the shoulders.
“It’s true, damn it. Sam Blake hired me to put a stop to it before he was driven off the range. I’ve done a lot of checking, and one of my best sources of information was Daisy Winston. And believe me, she was in a position to know.”
She shoved his hands away. “Don’t touch me!” Her voice trembled. “Maybe you really believe what you’re saying, but don’t you see? Daisy Winston fed you a pack of lies! What was she—a saloon girl? Do you really think what she said was reliable? Maybe she and my father had a fight, and she made up these things in anger! Maybe—”
“No, Bryony. Hear me out.”
He crouched down opposite her on the blanket.
“Daisy had no reason to lie to me. She was a dirt-poor kid from the hills of Tennessee who lost whatever family she had during the war. She drifted west simply because there was nowhere else to go. Meg Donahue, the owner of the Silver Spur, took her in a few years back and gave her a job. Your father met her in the saloon and she eventually became his mistress. His mistress, Bryony, even though she was little more than an ignorant, scared kid barely older than his own daughter!”