Lone Star Lonely

by Maggie Shayne

  Galloping hooves thundered in the distance, drawing nearer. The ground beneath him trembled. He didn’t give a damn. The horse pounded up to him, then stopped and snorted and blew and panted while saddle leather creaked and booted feet hit the ground.

  “Adam!” A hand fell onto his shoulder. “Adam, are you okay?”

  Elliot. His baby brother. The motherless little boy who had cried for his mama every night for a month. The pudgy-faced angel who had fallen asleep in big brother Garrett’s arms only when he was too exhausted to cry anymore. And who had slept half of every night interrupted by the spasming sobs that continued long after his crying stopped. Like echoes…like aftershocks. He didn’t even remember, did he? How could he forget that kind of trauma?

  His kid brother was a man now. Big, callused hands closed on Adam’s shoulders, rolled him over as if he was a featherweight. A man’s concerned, narrowed eyes peered down at him from a tanned face.

  “What the hell happened?”

  Adam shook his head, averted his eyes.

  “Talk to me, Adam,” Elliot said. Loud and firm, that voice. And for the first time Adam saw a hint of anger in his kid brother’s eyes. “I just saw Kirsten at her lawyer’s house in broad daylight, bawling like a motherless calf, and I think she was crying even before she found the shock of her life waiting for her there. Now here you are facedown in the dirt and—dammit, Adam, are you crying? What the hell is going on with you two?”

  Adam sat up slowly, knuckled his face dry, embarrassed, but still shaking with emotion. Elliot hunkered down low. His anger faded. His touch softened. “Adam?”

  When Adam looked at Elliot he saw that little kid crying for his mother. Asking innocently, trustingly, when Daddy was coming home.

  The next thing Adam knew, he’d slammed his arms around his brother’s shoulders and was holding him hard, speaking muffled words into Elliot’s denim shirt. “Dammit, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, El. I didn’t know.”

  Elliot hugged back, slapped Adam’s shoulders a few times for good measure, then eased himself free and studied his brother’s face worriedly. “Have you been drinking, Adam?”

  “I wish to God I had.” Adam lowered his head, drew a shaky breath. “It was Kirsten,” he managed to say. He levered himself to his feet, slapped at the dirt on his jeans. “Kirsten was driving the car that ran our parents off the road that day, El. It was her.”

  Elliot stood there a second, blinking. “But…she couldn’t have been more than…?”

  “Fourteen,” Adam filled in. “God, I can’t believe…don’t want to believe…but it’s true. She told me herself, just this morning.”

  Elliot closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, Adam could see a harsh pain in their depths. “So that’s what that Cowan bastard has been holding over her head all this time. The son of a bitch. Whoever shot him deserves the freaking Nobel prize.”

  Adam shook his head slowly. “Him? What about her? She’s the one who killed our parents and lied about it.”

  “Hell, yeah, she lied about it. Wouldn’t you? Think about this, Adam—put yourself in her place. You’ve got yourself a father with a ticker that could give out at any time, and you’re in love with the son of the people who died in the accident. What the hell was she supposed to do? She was a kid, for God’s sake!”

  Adam drew a breath. “She didn’t even know at first. Cowan told her they were fine. He sprang the truth on her like a trap on our wedding day, used it to get her to take off with him instead.”

  Elliot sighed long and low, shaking his head, kicking pebbles. “Can you imagine what that did to her?” he asked. He straightened, took off his hat, kneading the brim as he stared out toward the sunrise. “Finding out on her wedding day that she’d killed her own in-laws?” He kicked a larger rock and sent it sailing. “Man, can you imagine how she must have felt? She had the dress, the flowers, the diamond on her finger. She had to give it all up. All because of that bastard. That vile, soulless bastard who forced her into marrying him when she must have hated his guts. Can you imagine what that must have been like? Living with that creep because of his blackmail? My God, no wonder she’s seemed so hard and cold these past two years. She must have had to turn off every feeling she ever had.”

  Adam had gone still, finally hearing what his brother was saying. He was…he was sympathizing… with Kirsten! “I can’t believe you. You feel sorry for her? She killed our parents, Elliot.’’

  “I got that part.” Elliot met his eyes, then his brows arched. “Hell, what’s wrong with you? You think she did it on purpose? You think it was a premeditated act of malicious violence? It was an accident, Adam. She was fourteen years old! You took Dad’s car out when you were that age. The same damn thing could just as easily have happened to you!”

  Adam swallowed hard. It was true. What Kirsten had done had been an accident.

  “You walked out on her for that, didn’t you, Adam? You turned your back on a woman who doesn’t have a friend in the world right now, because of an old mistake, a mistake she made when she was no more than a kid.”

  “It’s more than the mistake!” Adam shouted back. “It’s the lies. Dammit, Elliot, even if you can forgive the accident, how the hell can you forgive the lies?”

  “What about those lies, Adam?” Elliot shook his head, slammed his hat back on. “You think you wouldn’t have done the same thing in her place? You just go ahead and leave that girl in agony. You and your high and mighty morals and your judgmental attitude. You’ll be damned lucky if I don’t go back there and marry her myself.”

  Adam looked up slowly, fists clenching at his sides, a fire rising in his belly so suddenly that he could barely contain it.

  “Yeah. I can see in your eyes that you’ve stopped loving her because of this. Plain as day. Obvious in the way you’re looking at me like you want to rip my heart out right now.”

  “Elliot–”

  “Tell me something, big brother. Would you have lied through your teeth if you thought you could have kept our father alive by doing it?”

  The words hit him between the eyes. Hard, and dead-on accurate. Oh, God, Adam thought. He closed his eyes, lowered his head. What the hell had he done?

  “Would you, Adam?” Elliot demanded.

  Adam lifted his head, met his brother’s eyes—wise beyond their years. “You’re right. God, you’re right. I would,” he muttered.

  Elliot crossed his arms over his chest and nodded, a smug expression on his face. “I thought so.”

  Adam looked around for his hat, spotted it, a tiny speck in the distance, and started walking.

  “Take the horse,” Elliot said. “I brought an extra, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  Frowning, Adam realized he hadn’t noticed. He’d been too wrapped up in self-pity and condemnation of the woman he loved to notice much of anything. Elliot had ridden Kirsten’s borrowed mount, and he’d apparently been leading Adam’s. Adam climbed into the saddle. “Where did you leave Kirsten?”

  “I put her at Jessi’s place for now. Told her to keep her head down and stay put till I found you and came back. Hell, she was a mess. I doubt she could have gone anywhere even if she’d wanted to.”

  Adam turned in the saddle. “You said that…she was crying?”

  “Crying is a pretty word for what she was doing. And it wasn’t pretty, believe me. I never saw a woman in such sorry shape before.”

  Adam lifted his chin, closed his eyes. He had promised Kirsten that no matter what she confessed to him, he would stand by her. He had vowed he wouldn’t run away in anger this time. He had sworn nothing she could have done in the past would make a difference to him. And then he had proceeded to break every pledge he’d made.

  “It must have taken one hell of a lot of courage for her to tell you all that, big brother,” Elliot said. “A hell of a lot of courage.”

  Especially since she had so accurately predicted his reaction, Adam thought.

  Something was different now. His emotional
storm, the one he had just weathered, seemed to have cleansed him somehow. Seemed to have made his vision a little clearer, his head a little sharper. He knew now. It had been an accident, what had happened to his mother and father. They hadn’t left of their own accord. It wasn’t their fault, and it wasn’t Kirsten’s….

  And it wasn’t mine.

  And that was the heart of all of this, wasn’t it? That was the thing that had been eating at his gut since he was fourteen going on ninety-nine. That the deaths of his parents had somehow been his fault. That he had done something wrong and brought disaster raining down on the family. He was the smartest, the most logical minded, the thinker. And to him, it had seemed impossible that something so tragic could have happened without some reason. Some cause. And since he had known deep down that his brothers were too good, that his parents were flawless, that his baby sister was too innocent to have done anything so awful as to bring about this kind of divine retribution, it must have been him. He must have done something. It had to have been his fault.

  And he had been living with the guilt of that feeling ever since.

  Until now. Kirsten’s confession had taken that burden from his shoulders…. And it had given him another target for the blame. He had reacted violently but predictably, lashing out at her and, in the end, abandoning her the way he’d been abandoned by her, and because of her. And then finally, at long last, he had been free to give vent to his grief.

  But it wasn’t Kirsten’s fault, either. And because he knew the pain of living with the idea that something so awful was your fault, he had to get back to her. He had to tell her, to make her believe….

  Elliot spurred his horse, then leaned sideways in the saddle. Bending so low his head nearly dragged the ground, he scooped up Adam’s dropped Stetson in one hand, clung to the pommel with the other and somehow managed to get himself upright again. Then he slowed until Adam caught up to him. Elliot reached up and dropped the hat onto Adam’s head.

  “Thanks,” Adam muttered.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Not just for the hat,” Adam said.

  “I know.”

  “You’ve been takin’ risks left and right, El.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “You seem to show up just when I need you.”

  “I’m keeping my eye on you, big brother.”

  Adam swallowed. “Is Wes mad about the horses?”

  “You know Wes. He’s always mad about something. Taylor smoothed things over, though.”

  “He can’t stay mad when she’s around, can he?”

  “No chance in hell. Could you?”

  Adam almost smiled. “Guess not.”

  “Jessi and Lash are flying home. Chelsea told them what was going on up here, and Jessi’s bound and determined to dive right into the middle of it.”

  “Like you?”

  Elliot shrugged. “She’s better at this kind of thing than I am. If Jessi was home, she’d have Kirsten cleared of all charges and the two of you walking down the aisle by now.”

  Adam lowered his head. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. I broke every promise I ever made to her…twice now.”

  “So you just go on back, beg her forgiveness and get busy keeping those promises.”

  “I wish it was that simple.”

  Elliot shrugged.

  “Then there’s the matter of this murder charge,” Adam went on.

  “Only a heartless slug of a man like Cowan could decide that as long as he was going to die, he might as well take his wife out with him.”

  Adam lifted a brow. “So you buy that theory?”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense. Especially now.”

  “Now?”

  Elliot glanced over at Adam. “That’s right, you don’t know. I was so damned mad at you for hurting Kirsten that I forgot to tell you what happened after you left.”

  Adam’s heart skipped a beat. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s in shock, Adam. She made her way over to Madden Hawkins’ place. I was on my way there, too, luckily. Hawkins was supposed to take a copy of Cowan’s will over to the rangers’ station in El Paso last night. But he never showed. They called him this morning, got no answer, so they asked Garrett to send someone out there, and I volunteered.”

  “And?”

  Elliot nodded. “I got there about the time Kirsten let out her first scream. She’d arrived first and found Hawkins hanging from a light fixture over his kitchen table. The suicide note was pinned to his shirt.”

  Adam’s throat went dry. He grimaced as he realized how horrible it must have been for Kirsten. He should have been there, should have been with her.

  “My God,” he managed.

  “Yeah. And I didn’t have time to look around a whole lot, but I have a feeling that will is long gone. Garrett’s over there now, searching the place for it.”

  “Then…you think this is all tied up somehow with Cowan’s murder?”

  Elliot nodded. “I sure as hell do.”

  Adam’s blood seemed to chill in his veins. “And Kirsten’s all alone,” he muttered. Then he kicked the mare’s sides, and she lunged into a powerful gallop.

  They rode at a dead run the rest of the way back to town, through the streets, across the lawn and right up to Jessi’s little cottage. Dismounting, Adam tied his horse, then glanced up and down the road, but he saw no prying eyes, no killers lurking. He moved quickly to the door at the front of the house.

  And then his blood ran cold.

  The door stood open. Shards of broken glass spiked from its window. Hinges creaked in whispers as the breeze moved the door slightly back and forth.

  “Oh, no….”

  He pushed the door open cautiously, peered inside. “Kirsten?”

  But there was no answer. And he no longer needed one. Jessi’s house looked as if a wrestling match had gone on inside.

  Kirsten was gone. But it was pretty obvious that she hadn’t gone willingly. Someone had come here while Elliot was away, and they’d taken her. And it looked as if she had put up one hell of a fight.

  Adam closed his eyes and cursed himself for having left her this morning. God, if anything happened to her, he would never forgive himself.

  Chapter 12

  He’d been searching Jessi’s house—seeking some kind of clue as to who had been here and where they’d taken Kirsten—for only a few minutes when a hand fell heavily on Adam’s shoulder from behind. He whirled, adrenaline surging, fist coming up automatically, ready to nail whoever dared mess with him at a time like this and immediately thinking of the killer.

  Garrett stood there, eyed the fist that had frozen halfway to his face and shook his head slowly. “I let you get away with that once, Adam. But I wouldn’t be pushing my luck if I were you. I don’t have much patience for kid brothers with violent tendencies.”

  Adam lowered his hand and his head, his breath rushing out of him all at once. “I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry, Garrett. About hitting you before. I had to get Kirsten the hell out of there. I couldn’t let her go to jail any more than you could stand by and let someone lock Chelsea up in a cell when you knew damned good and well she was innocent.”

  “Or even if I thought she might not be,” Garrett said. Then he eyed Adam with a frown. “You felt that strongly about it, huh?” he asked, searching his brother’s face.

  “Yeah. I did.”

  “So that’s it. I kinda figured.”

  Adam shook his head. “I never should have hit you like that—”

  “Yeah, and I never should have gone down so easy. Just figured it was for the best. I sure as hell didn’t want to hit you back, and if I’d got up again, you’d have forced me to.”

  Adam lowered his head. “So Elliot was right. You took the fall and let us go.”

  “Hey, don’t look so disappointed. You pack a mean punch. Just not quite as mean as my jawbone.” Garrett rubbed the spot. “Besides, it left a respectable bruise.” Then he stopped kidding
and looked around the room. “What happened here?”

  “Elliot didn’t tell you on the phone when he called to tell you to get over here?”

  Elliot appeared from another room. He and Adam had been searching the house for clues, but so far, they’d found nothing. “Hell, no, I didn’t tell him on the phone,” he said. “I didn’t know who might be with him. God knows half the El Paso rangers were over at Hawkins’ place with him earlier. I sure didn’t want them all showing up here.”

  “Well, I’m here, and I’m alone, so you can tell me now. What the hell happened?”

  “Someone broke in and took Kirsten,” Elliot announced. “And we’re afraid it’s the same guy who murdered Joseph Cowan.”

  “Garrett, we have to find her,” Adam said, and he could hear the desperation in his own voice, but he didn’t care. “The son of a bitch took a shot at the border patrol last night and damn near started a war. She could have been killed, Garrett, and I think that’s exactly what this guy wants. He wants her dead.” Adam paced away, pushing a hand through his hair. “I know we didn’t part on the best of terms, but I need your help. Kirsten needs your help. And it wasn’t her fault, what I

  did—”

  “Can it, Adam. You’re my brother. You know I’ll do whatever I can.”

  “I’m running outside the law here, Garrett,” Adam said, a warning tone to his voice.

  “The hell with the law. This is blood.”

  Adam met Garrett’s eyes, saw the bond they shared reflected there, and nodded once.

  Garrett turned to Elliot. “Did you find anything here?”

  “Nothing.”

  Shaking his head, Garrett looked around. “You say you think this clown wants her dead. But if that’s the case, Adam, why didn’t he just kill her right here? Why drag her off someplace else?”

  Adam blew air through clenched teeth. “I don’t know. Hell, maybe he wants to make it look like an accident or a sui—” There he stopped, his head coming up slowly. “Or a suicide.”