“Miss Kendrick?”
Patch whirled at the sound of Trahern’s voice. Think of the devil, and he lands on your doorstep.
“Are you all right?”
“You surprised me.” Patch put a hand on her heart as though she could slow it down from the outside.
“I wanted a chance to talk to you privately.”
“We’re alone now.” Patch had no intention of going anywhere with Jefferson Trahern.
Trahern looked around him. There was no one coming along the boardwalk in either direction. They stood in the shade of a live oak, so the heat wasn’t unbearable. “All right. I can say what I have to say here. I want to know what your relationship is to Ethan Hawk. I want to know why you’re staying at the Double Diamond. And I want to know why you’ve befriended my daughter.”
That was plain speaking.
Patch started with the last question, because it was the easiest to answer. “I didn’t choose to befriend Merielle, she chose me. I know she isn’t … quite right. But I think she needs a friend, and I can be that to her.
“I’m staying at the Double Diamond because Mrs. Hawk is ill, and she needs someone to do the cooking and cleaning and to keep an eye on her young daughter.”
Patch avoided answering the most difficult question directly. “I know you’ve sworn vengeance on Ethan Hawk, that you blame him for everything bad that’s happened to your children. But I believe you’ve wronged him. Someday, soon, I hope to prove that to you.”
“I plan to see Ethan Hawk dead and buried if it’s the last thing I do,” Trahern said. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your distance from him.”
“I won’t leave Mrs. Hawk to manage alone,” Patch said.
“Suit yourself.”
He started across the street, and Patch hurried to catch up with him. “Am I still invited for supper?”
He paused in the middle of the street, and such was his presence that he stopped a dray full of lumber coming one way and a load of cotton coming from the other. “I won’t deny my daughter anything she wants. If you wish to come, Miss Kendrick, you’re welcome.”
He left her standing there, and she was lucky not to be run over when the two wagons swung back into motion. It wasn’t until she reached the sidewalk that she realized Trahern’s destination.
He was opening the door to the sheriff’s office.
Patch experienced a terrifying moment when she imagined what would happen when Jefferson Trahern and Ethan Hawk met face-to-face with only Careless Lachlan to referee. She was frozen in a state of helpless panic. There was no way she could get there in time to prevent what was going to happen.
She was so focused on the door to the sheriffs office that she never saw Ethan until he was beside her.
“What are you doing here? I thought …” Her face seesawed from Ethan to the sheriff’s office and back.
“Shall we stroll this way?” Ethan placed her arm through his and headed down the boardwalk away from the jail.
“Ethan, what—”
“Later,” he said. “I think it’s time we headed for home.”
Careless Lachlan never looked up from his plate when he heard the front door open and shut. Damn that Ethan Hawk, stirring up trouble, keeping a man from his dinner. It was plumb loco to open up an investigation of a crime committed seventeen years ago. He had told Ethan everything he knew. Which was nothing. What did the damned man want from him now? “What the hell’re you doin’ back here—”
Careless glanced up to see Jefferson Trahern standing in front of him. The forkful of food he had just shoveled into his mouth came spewing back out. He bobbed to his feet, grabbed the red-checkered cloth tucked under his chin, and swiped at the mashed potatoes on his chin and scattered in clumps across his desk.
Trahern retrieved the gold pocket watch from his vest pocket, extended it the length of the gold chain that held it there, snapped it open, checked the time, and snapped it closed again. “It’s exactly one o’clock. Did we, or did we not, have an appointment today?”
Careless stood there looking like a fool and feeling like a jackass. “We did. Have a seat, Mr. Trahern.” Careless gestured toward the nearest chair, but it was piled high with posters and flyers. He gestured to another that held a frayed Montgomery Ward catalog. In fact, there wasn’t any surface in the room that wasn’t covered with something.
“Why don’t you clean this place up?” Trahern asked in an irritated voice. “Sheriff of a town ought to be a little neater, don’t you think?”
Careless wasn’t sure whether that was a warning or a threat. It felt like both. Careless swallowed down his feelings of annoyance. He was the same man now that he had been twenty years ago when Trahern had gotten him hired by the town council. He had felt then as he felt now. Cleaning was a waste of time. Things just got messed up again.
But he served as sheriff of Oakville only so long as it pleased Jefferson Trahern for him to do so. At fifty-four, Careless Lachlan didn’t feel like pulling up stakes and moving on. When Trahern said jump, Careless got to hopping like a bunch of tree frogs. “I’ll get someone in here to straighten up,” he mumbled.
Careless hurried around his desk and shoved a pile of flyers and posters onto the floor from the seat of a ladderback chair. “You can sit here.”
Trahern took one look at the uncomfortable chair and said, “I think I’ll stand. This won’t take long.”
Careless felt uncomfortable standing face-to-face with Trahern. But he didn’t know any way to retreat behind his desk except by turning his back on the other man. No one with sense and a wish for survival turned his back on Jefferson Trahern.
“Uh … what can I do for you, Mr. Trahern?” Careless asked. “You ain’t come about that idea of Hawk’s, have you? I mean, ‘vestigatin’ what happened seventeen years ago—that’s crazy, right?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Trahern said. “Who’s investigating what?”
Careless wished he had kept his mouth shut, because it felt damned uncomfortable now that he had his foot in it. He pulled at the hairs on his chin. “Uh … ain’t you heard?”
“Heard what? Spit it out, Careless. I haven’t got all day.”
“Had a visit from Hawk. He wanted to know everythin’ I ’membered ’bout the ’vestigation of your daughter’s ra— ’Bout what happened that day when Miss Trahern got …” Careless didn’t dare get any more specific because every time he tried, Trahern’s face tightened up. Finally, he said, “Anyway, Hawk wants to know what I found out in my ’vestigation.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That there weren’t no ’vestigation, ’cause we knew who done it.”
“What did he say to that?”
“Said we was mistaken. Said he didn’t do it. Said the real culprit has been runnin’ free all these years. He means to find the man who done it and bring him to justice.”
“He won’t have to look any farther than his own mirror,” Trahern said. “Ruthless son of a bitch.”
Careless scratched nervously at his crotch. He caught Trahern’s disgusted look and left off what he was doing.
“There isn’t anyone else it could be,” Trahern muttered.
“Hawk said there’s whole bunches of suspects.”
“Who?” Trahern demanded.
“Everybody who showed up to your daughter’s party. Hawk said it coulda been any one of ’em.”
Trahern quickly went through a mental list of everyone who had been invited to Merielle’s birthday party. It was a long one because he had just finished his year of mourning for Merielle’s mother, who had died unexpectedly of pneumonia the previous winter. He had wanted his daughter to have the kind of shindig her mother had always given. He had asked half the businessmen in town to come, along with everyone in the cattlemen’s association. Dorne had invited some of his friends, as well.
But none of them had been anywhere near Merielle when she was found. Ethan had.
There was only one reason why Hawk was raising doubts now about what had happened. He wanted to stop Trahern from hounding him, and he hoped to get public sympathy on his side. By God, that wasn’t going to happen!
Every morning when he faced his daughter across the breakfast table, Trahern was reminded of Ethan Hawk’s crime. He hadn’t been able, even with all his wealth, to undo the damage Ethan had done.
Once, a long time ago, he had brought in some doctors from back East to see if they could help Merielle recover her memory. But their attempts only made her hysterical. For several days afterward she didn’t speak at all. He was afraid of losing her completely, so he had sent the doctors back where they came from. He had loved the child she was, and mourned the woman she would never become.
It had cost a fortune to hunt Ethan down. He had frothed at the mouth when a jury sentenced Ethan to a mere seven years in prison instead of hanging him for Dorne’s murder. And he had nearly gone mad when they insisted there was insufficient evidence to convict him of Merielle’s rape.
It was during the years Ethan spent in prison that Trahern realized the law wasn’t going to give him the justice he craved. Of course he couldn’t be blatant about taking the law into his own hands, because the town was willing to concede that Ethan had paid his debt in prison. Trahern had to exercise discretion in order to avoid causing trouble for himself.
Ordinarily, he would have ordered his foreman to make whatever arrangements were necessary to solve the problem. But his foreman, Frank Meade, had been Ethan’s friend. He didn’t trust Frank to look to his boss’s interests where Ethan was concerned.
So Trahern had left Frank out of it. To distance himself, he had asked Careless Lachlan to take care of hiring someone to kill Ethan Hawk when he got out of prison. To his chagrin, Ethan had easily dealt with the first bunch of hired guns Careless had found. This time, however, Trahern was bringing in the best. He wanted this business finished once and for all.
His hate for Ethan Hawk had been a boil on his neck for seventeen years, chafing under his collar, the swelling less some days and worse on others. He wanted it cut out.
“Have you contacted that gunman in Wichita?” Trahern asked the sheriff.
Careless had been surreptitiously shifting himself, trying to get comfortable inside his trousers. He hadn’t yet succeeded, and his agitation came out in his answer. “It ain’t that easy hirin’ killers when you’re the sheriff!”
“That problem can easily be remedied,” Trahern said in a menacing voice.
Careless realized he had crossed the line and mentally stepped back. “Ain’t gonna get rid of Ethan Hawk with no hired gun. He’s too fast,” he said sullenly.
“We’ll see. Calloway has a reputation of his own. Now, are you going to take care of it, or do we need a new sheriff in Oakville?”
Careless felt like a pony with his bridle off. He didn’t know which way to go, what to do. This had been a good job for a long time. He had done a few favors for Jefferson Trahern over the years, especially when Dorne was alive. Overlooking the boy’s pranks in town that resulted in broken windows and damaged property. Calming down Horace Felber when Dorne roughed up Chester. Warning off the father of a sodbuster girl Dorne had made advances to.
He had manipulated the law for Trahern, too. Moving off some drifters who had settled on land that didn’t belong to the Tumbling T, but which Trahern used to graze his cattle. Refusing to help Alexander Hawk when masked riders began rustling his cattle. Railroading Ethan Hawk into prison.
He’d had his doubts at the time about whether Ethan was guilty, but he had lacked the guts to face down Jefferson Trahern. Things hadn’t changed much in seventeen years. Careless wasn’t proud of himself, but he had to live somehow. And this was all he knew.
He faced Trahern with his head hanging like a panting tongue. “I’ll take care of it.”
“How long before you think he’ll get here?”
“I ain’t got no control of that,” Careless said. “He’ll be here when he gets here.”
“Just make sure he does the job,” Trahern said. “Or you can say good-bye to yours.”
Trahern whirled on a booted heel and left Careless standing there.
When the door slammed behind the big man, Careless heaved a sigh so big you could feel the draft.
“Hell,” he muttered. “Way things are goin’, looks like I might have to shoot Ethan Hawk myself.”
Ethan tied his horse to the back of the wagon Patch had brought to town, helped her up onto the wooden seat, then stepped up and across her and seated himself. He grabbed the reins, gave the team a slap, and headed the wagon out of town.
Patch scooted as close to Ethan as she could and threaded her arm through his. “What did the sheriff say?”
“That I’m wasting my time. There never was any investigation, so he doesn’t have any information to share with me.”
“Did you tell him you plan to do your own investigation?”
Ethan smiled wryly. “He wasn’t impressed.”
Ethan looked at the spot where Patch’s thigh rested against his. The feel of her flesh pressed up close to his was giving him ideas he had no business having. He sidled his leg away, but to his dismay, hers followed.
Ethan glanced at Patch from the corner of his eye. She smiled at him, the soul of innocence. She couldn’t know what she was doing to him, he decided, and it would only embarrass them both if he said anything. He gritted his back teeth and tried to ignore his body’s response to her nearness.
“I thought surely Trahern was going to catch you in the sheriff’s office,” Patch said.
“I saw him coming and slipped out the back.” Ethan eyed her keenly. “It looked like the two of you were having a discussion. What was that all about?”
“You’ll never guess what happened!”
“Knowing you, probably not,” Ethan said with a wry twist of his mouth.
Patch playfully hugged his arm tight against her. Ethan felt the weight of her left breast against his arm. He glanced sharply at her, but she seemed oblivious to what she had done.
“It’s something wonderful, actually,” Patch said. “I got invited to supper by Merielle Trahern.”
“You what! Are you out of your mind?” Ethan yanked the team to a quick halt. He set the brake and wrapped the reins around it to leave his hands free to shake the daylights out of Patch. Only she had clutched his arm and was holding on for dear life.
“Give me a chance to explain!”
He grabbed her jaw with his free hand, tipped her chin up, and said, “This had better be good.”
“Don’t you see? Merielle is the key to everything. What if she could remember what happened? What if she could name the man who attacked her? Trahern would have to leave you alone.”
“What does all that have to do with going to dinner at Trahern’s place?”
“Merielle likes me, Ethan. I think she might learn to trust me. Maybe I could get her to talk about the past.”
“I thought Frank was going to do that.”
“Did I happen to mention that I saw Frank with Merielle at the mercantile?
“No, you didn’t.”
“Well, Frank was there. He already tried talking to Merielle, but she didn’t remember anything.”
Patch slipped her free hand up to play with the dark curls at Ethan’s collar. He shuddered as her gloved finger slid across his nape. He grabbed her wrist and dragged her hand down. His eyes narrowed. That sort of behavior was damned provocative. The lady had to know what she was doing to him.
Patch smiled nonchalantly up at him and continued, “So you see, I have to go to Merielle’s house for dinner.”
“No, I don’t see that at all. I’ve told you how Trahern feels about me. I don’t want you getting caught in the middle.”
“Trahern knows I’m staying at the Double Diamond, Ethan. He said if Merielle wants me for a friend, he won’t stand in her way. Actually, once he found out Merielle liked me, he practic
ally ordered me to come.”
Patch traced the corded muscle that stood out on the back of Ethan’s hand. “This is a chance we can’t afford to pass up. If Merielle ever gets her memory back—”
“You’re shooting at stars, Patch. The chances of Merielle being like she was are slim to none.”
“I’ll take that chance,” Patch retorted.
“I don’t want you to go.”
“I’m going.”
Her chin jutted mulishly, her blue eyes flashed. Her breathing picked up so her breasts rose and fell practically under his nose. Ethan found her absolutely beautiful. Utterly desirable. Almost irresistible.
He carefully separated himself from Patch, picked up the reins, and headed the team homeward again. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“I won’t change my mind.”
“We’ll see.”
The team had barely started moving when Patch cried, “Stop the wagon!”
Ethan jerked the team to a halt. The wagon was still rolling when she leapt down from the seat and headed off in the direction of a patch of sagebrush. Ethan wrapped the reins around the brake and raced after her.
“What’s the matter?” he yelled as he ran. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
By the time he caught up to her, Patch had already dropped to the ground in the brush beside a small doe that was trying unsuccessfully to get back on her feet.
“Stay away!” Ethan warned. “Those flailing hooves could slice you to ribbons.”
He noticed that Patch was on her knees in the dirt—totally unmindful of the costly red velvet dress she was wearing. Here was the reckless hoyden he remembered from the days in Montana. Careless, carefree, with a heart as big as the sky. Only his hoyden had grown into a woman, the sight of whom left his throat dry and his heart pounding.
“Relax, dearie. Everything’s going to be all right,” Patch crooned to the wounded animal.
Outlaw’s Bride Page 11