Jesse's Renegade (#3 of the Danner Quartet)

by Nancy Bush

  “I told him there was an incriminating paper that would find its way to the proper authorities—not Montana’s paid ones—if anything should happen to me,” Jesse went on. “He had to listen to me. I then told him to pay me my half of the Pacific Shipbuilders Ltd. money if he wanted immunity. He agreed.”

  Kelsey found herself staring at her husband as if she’d never seen him before. “You mean, you let him buy you off?” she asked in disbelief.

  “I let him think he could,” Jesse drawled, smiling at his wife’s horror.

  “There’s another problem,” Samuel said quietly.

  “What?”

  “Does the name Victor Flynne mean anything to you? He goes by Victor Flannigan now, but from what Patricia Lee said, I think his real name’s Flynne.”

  “Patricia Lee?” Jesse gazed at him uncomprehendingly. “Victor Flynne sounds somewhat familiar. Flynne,” he added musingly.

  “He’s the private investigator Tremaine was after. The one who helped Gainsborough find our mother and Lexie. He may be working for Montana too.” Seeing Jesse’s still-blank look, Samuel shook his head. “I don’t have all the information yet, but I will. I owe Flynne.”

  “You mean Tremaine owes him,” Jesse said. “If anyone’s got a debt to pay Flynne, it’s—”

  “No,” Samuel cut him off, a muscle working in his jaw. “Leave Tremaine and Lexie out of it. You let them know, then the whole family, Harrison and Miracle too, will charge to the rescue. This is my battle.”

  Jesse suddenly remembered the Samuel of his youth, standing in the doorway of the farmhouse, calmly shooting the bastards who’d threatened Lexie, his mother, and their whole family. Samuel’d clipped one too. If he’d been older, his aim would have probably been a little steadier, a little stronger, and he’d have killed him outright. If he wanted this to be his own private war, Jesse believed he would prevail.

  “Okay,” Jesse said.

  Kelsey had been practically forgotten during this whole exchange. Now she put in tensely, “In case either of you is interested, Lacey Duprés told me today that one of her men was responsible for the attack on me. She said it was an accident, that the horse was uncontrollable. She fired the man responsible and he’s since left Portland.”

  Samuel’s dark gaze fastened on Kelsey. “It’s either a lie, or she’s covering up for someone else.”

  “Montana?” Jesse suggested crisply.

  “Only if Flynne’s working for Montana.”

  Memory hit Jesse like a bullet between the eyes. He inhaled sharply. “Flannigan? Victor Flannigan. Jesus,” he whistled between his teeth. “Zeke used an investigator named Flannigan, I believe it was Victor Flannigan, to find out some information about our family. I wanted to know if Mother was really dead, and Zeke handled the whole thing.”

  “And I’m the reason you hired that investigator,” Kelsey said with dawning horror.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Samuel’s voice was the crack of doom. “Flynne was already after the Danners before either of you got involved.”

  “How do you know?” Jesse asked, aware Samuel was keeping back some form of vital information.

  “Let me handle Flynne,” was all he said as he strode determinedly for the door. Jesse followed in his brother’s wake, dissatisfied with Samuel’s ambiguous remarks.

  “This isn’t over yet,” Jesse told him tersely.

  “You’re damn right it isn’t over.” Samuel managed a cold smile that chilled Kelsey’s blood. She’d never seen this side of him. “You were right, Jesse. The newspaper, the police, the justice system—none of it’s going to work. And it wouldn’t be enough anyway,” he said, his voice lowering threateningly. “If I need you, I’ll let you know,” he added as a parting farewell.

  “What do you think he’ll do?” Kelsey asked when they were alone once more, standing beneath the foyer chandelier.

  Jesse didn’t answer. His face was pulled into a frown of concentration, his hands on his hips, his gaze locked on the doorway that Samuel had just passed through. Time seemed suspended. The only sounds were those of Kelsey’s rapid heartbeats, and Jesse’s slow, rhythmic breaths. When his gaze touched on hers it was sober, considering. Jesse, who moments before had treated her like a partner, an equal, and whom she’d treated like a long-lost lover, now regarded her with the eyes of a distant stranger.

  The moment of decision had arrived, Kelsey realized instinctively. This was it. The next course of action. The next hurdle. He was about to end their marriage.

  I’m not ready! she cried inside, suddenly afraid. Now that the issue was at hand, she couldn’t bear to face a decision that would only cause her deep misery.

  Jesse seemed to understand what she was feeling. He gestured toward the den, and Kelsey preceded him stiffly. She walked to the window and Jesse crossed to the bar, poured himself a drink and lifted one eyebrow at her, silently asking her what she wanted. Kelsey was about to refuse, but then decided if she’d ever needed to stoke her courage, it was now. “Bourbon,” she said, causing her husband to choke out a laugh.

  “When have you ever drunk bourbon?” he asked ruefully as he handed her a glass.

  “Never,” she admitted, tasting the amber liquid. It filled her throat with fire, nearly choking her.

  “You seem to be expecting some kind of scene. I’m not going to fight you, Kelsey. I already told you that.”

  “I know.” She nodded jerkily. “We’ve threatened each other, and ordered each other around, and maybe even pleaded with each other a bit,” Kelsey said, staring into the depths of her drink. “But we’ve never really said how we feel about this marriage.”

  “You’ve said how you feel. You want a divorce.” He gulped down a third of his drink.

  His tone suggested he didn’t believe she might have changed her mind. Hope flared in her breast, but was quickly doused as reality crashed down on her with devastating ruthlessness. “I overhead your conversation with Emerald that night,” she admitted in a pained voice. “I wasn’t that far behind you when I left your father’s house. I caught up with you in the lane.”

  This clearly wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. Jesse paused, staring at her in consternation, his drink halfway to his lips. “What did you determine from that illuminating discussion?” he asked flatly.

  “That every rumor about you was probably based in truth. And then I thought of my father, and how his philandering nearly ruined my life, and even Jace’s to some degree. And I felt—miserable.”

  “I see.”

  She could feel his pulling away from her. She didn’t want to make things worse, but she couldn’t deny what she knew to be the truth. “Did you love Emerald, Jesse?” she asked in a small voice, hoping in some absurd way that he’d admit he had.

  “No.”

  “Or Alice, or any of them?”

  He sighed and set down his glass on the desk, the rest of his drink untouched. “No.”

  “Do you think you’re—capable of love?” Kelsey fought to get out.

  His blue gaze was somber, regretful. “No. Probably not. Not the way you mean. Is that what you want?”

  “I think that’s what every woman wants,” Kelsey admitted sadly.

  Jesse took a long breath, realizing with needle-sharp clarity that he’d dreaded this day because he’d known the truth would devastate her. He’d known it would be the end of their marriage. The simple truth would kill any chance they might have had.

  “When I met you, you were a challenge, Orchid.” He stressed her alias with a faint smile. “And I wanted you, not Charlotte. Wanted you like a fire in my blood.”

  “Like all the rest of the women you’ve known,” she said, swallowing.

  “Like a man wants a woman,” he agreed.

  Kelsey lifted her shoulders protectively, glancing away. “I think I wanted something more,” she admitted. “maybe not at first. I mean, you didn’t even know my real name.”

  “When you turned out to be Kelsey Garrett, I thought you’d
hoodwinked me into marriage. But I was wrong. You never wanted to marry me. It was a necessary evil, or so you thought. And now it’s not what you want either.”

  “I want to be married to someone I love,” she said in a voice so low he could scarcely hear her.

  “You left Rock Springs to get away from the bonds of a forced marriage,” Jesse said with near-painful accuracy. “You wanted freedom. A chance to find that someone to love all on your own. Unfortunately, I got in your way.”

  “Jesse…”

  He smiled regretfully. “I’ll sign those divorce papers tomorrow. I’ve got money set aside for you; you’ve got the passbook. And you can have whatever else you want. The house…” He glanced around the room as if viewing it for the first time. “I don’t really give a damn.”

  “No, Jesse, that’s not what I want—”

  “I always told myself I wouldn’t get involved with a lady. A society lady. I felt, with some rightfulness, that she would suck me dry financially, and be a millstone around my neck. But it isn’t true with you,” he added, seeing the misery in Kelsey’s beautiful silvery eyes. “It was never true with you.”

  “I think we’re working at cross purposes,” she choked out desperately.

  “You want to marry someone who’ll love you. For better or worse. Richer or poorer. Till death do you part. Isn’t that what you want?”

  “Yes.”

  He crossed to her, staring down at her face, deep into her soul, for several long, distressing seconds, where Kelsey fought to tell him it didn’t matter. She didn’t care that he didn’t love her. She loved him. But her damnable pride was like a rock in her throat, suffocating her, cutting off the truth.

  “Good night and good-bye, Mrs. Danner,” he said gently. “You were a truly remarkable wife.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The two forty-five train to Denver was late. Anxiously scanning the face of the rail station clock, Victor Flynne considered what would happen if Samuel Danner caught up with him before he could realize his travel plans. Victor’s network of informants had been explicit about the youngest Danner’s intensely focused campaign to learn his whereabouts. In fact, his informants had been all too eager to give Victor the news; in truth, the vicious, traitorous bastards had been downright smug. Hopeful wasn’t even too strong a word.

  So far none of them had given him away, but Victor had taken no chances. He’d been forced to live like a sewer rat these past few weeks to keep Samuel from catching him before he could get away.

  Fury was a cold and constant companion. How could this happen to him again? Injustice beat inside his head, driving like a hammer. Once again he’d been forced from the life he knew by a Danner. Mary McKechnie Danner’s death had been an accident—an accident, by God! Yet Samuel would never believe it. That bloodthirsty Danner spawn was just as ruthless and determined as his eldest brother, Tremaine, and Victor would be as good as dead himself if Samuel ever caught up with him.

  It was enough to give an innocent man nightmares.

  Victor swallowed, wondering if his mouth would ever form spit again. He lay awake nights now, afraid to fall asleep, envisioning all the terrible nightmares he’d warned Pete about. Pete! That slimy cur! Pete had given him away. Pete was the only one who’d known the truth about Mary Danner’s death.

  Pete and Lacey Duprés.

  Victor’s lip curled in disgust. He’d misjudged Lacey also, but the woman was a coward. She’d turned and run at the first sniff of danger. Victor had thought her need for vengeance against Evanston Reevesworth was as great as Victor’s own against the Danners. But no! The ugly, cold bitch had scurried away, frightened of the trouble she would be in if it were ever discovered her gala party had been instigated in part to lure Kelsey Danner into a trap.

  Too bad Pete didn’t manage to kill Kelsey that day, Victor thought, feeling very put-upon by his unhappy fate. Maybe that would have sent Jesse Danner thirsting for more vengeance against Montana Gray and kept Victor in the clear.

  The unfairness of it was choking, galling! Remembering how polished and controlled he’d once been, Victor tasted bile in the back of this throat. He almost hoped Samuel Danner found his trail. He’d lead the bastard on a merry chase, and when it was over, Victor would be in control once more. Samuel was only one Danner, after all. Jesse Danner, for reasons Victor could only guess at, didn’t seem to be involved in Samuel’s single-minded revenge. He suspected it was because Samuel hadn’t been completely honest with Jesse.

  Typical Danner arrogance, Victor thought with a superior sniff. Samuel wanted Victor all to himself. And that would be Samuel’s fatal mistake.

  A rush of air and an ear-spitting whistle announced an arriving train. The black monster rushed into the station with a deafening roar. Victor leapt to his feet, clutching his briefcase, his only luggage tightly in his hands. Inside the case were names and information, the remnants of a once-titanic blackmail industry, one Victor intended to resurrect once Samuel Danner was removed forever.

  Victor shuffled into the center of a crowd of travelers, unable to prevent himself from a last glance over his shoulder. But there was no sign of the russet-haired devil chasing him.

  Smiling to himself, Victor set his sights on the future. He would leave for a while. A few months, maybe a year. This time it wouldn’t take ten years, by God! He’d murder all the Danners in their beds first. All he had to do was bide a little time, and put enough distance between himself and his past so that if Samuel finally found him, the youngest Danner would be dead months before word got back to the rest of his hornet’s nest of a family.

  “Where ye headed?” a friendly freckle-faced young man asked him as Victor dusted off his seat.

  “East.”

  As far east as he could get, he thought, relief flooding through him as the great wheels of the locomotive began to circle, the train building up steam. London! Victor thought with sudden inspiration. He knew a fellow there. A goddamn blueblood. An earl with a pedigree long enough to choke a horse, and a voracious need for cash, no questions asked.

  A good place for business. A great place.

  And far enough away for Samuel Danner to seek vengeance on Victor’s terms.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  A chill wind blew through the trees and numbed Kelsey’s hands as she sat beside Drake on the driver’s seat. She clutched her shawl more closely to her shoulders, crumpling the papers folded in her right hand even more thoroughly than two weeks of worrying them had.

  True to his word, Jesse had signed away their marriage. He’d handed her the papers that Samuel had reluctantly handed him. She’d stared at his bold scrawl for hour upon hour until she’d heard Irma whispering to Mrs. Crowley how “dreadful unhappy the poor missus is over the way that scoundrel broke her heart. Ah, but he’s a handsome devil. Don’t blame her for hopin’ it would be different…”

  Handsome. Scoundrel. Devil.

  She’d certainly thought of Jesse in those terms. The Danner curse, he would declare sardonically anytime his particular charms were noted. Kelsey closed her eyes and drew a breath into pain-tightened lungs. She, Kelsey Orchid Garrett, keeper of her own heart, the dried-up spinster who was as cold and passionless as morning ashes, had fallen for those celebrated charms body and soul.

  “Damn.”

  “Ma’am?” Drake asked, shooting her a glance in an anxious way.

  “I’m fine, Drake.”

  She stared at the line of carriages and buggies traveling ahead of them to the downtown corner where Samuel’s office building was located.

  “Are you certain you wouldn’t be more comfortable inside, ma’—Mrs. Danner?”

  She smiled, knowing how difficult it was for Drake to unbend even that much. “I’ve spent half my life on a horse, Drake. Outside. Racing across fields, generally with a rifle as my companion. Riding inside a carriage still isn’t my favorite way to travel.”

  There was silence for several blocks, then Drake worked up the courage to ask, “Will you
be staying with the house, then—er—Mrs. Danner?”

  Tears rose in her throat at his worried tone. “No,” she murmured unsteadily.

  At Samuel’s office building she abandoned Drake without a word as to her intention. The loyal driver simply waited at the curb, as dedicated to Kelsey as he was to Jesse. This split in their marriage bothered him deeply, and unbeknownst to either Kelsey or Jesse, the servants had spent many hours together worrying over the fate of their new master and mistress, concurrent in their belief that the two young people were both too stubborn and full of pride to see that they were meant for each other.

  Kelsey hesitated in the hall outside Samuel’s office. She was angry with Jesse for putting her in this position. No. She was angry at herself for putting her in this position!

  She glanced down at the papers in her white-knuckled hands. With sudden fervor she ripped them straight down the middle, then ripped their halves, and fourths, until tiny shreds of paper scattered like rain to fall at her feet and drift across the waxed floor.

  Drawing several deep breaths, Kelsey stared off into space. She’d won many battles by relying on a rifle or pistol as a means of defense. She’d also barricaded herself behind a façade of frigidity. For a woman who prided herself on taking control of her life, she’d certainly run away and fought from an inferior position enough times.

  But it was time to face her feelings and do a new kind of battle. It would hurt terribly if he rejected her. Hurt a thousand times worse than being humiliated by Harrison in front of her whole hometown. Hurt more because she was far more vulnerable. Hurt more because she loved Jesse so desperately.

  With a newfound determination, and a rollicking pulse, Kelsey retraced her steps down the narrow stairway that led to the first floor of Samuel’s office building. On an impulse at the second floor landing she looked over the rail and spied a man’s polished black shoes. Someone was waiting in the building foyer.