Morgan didn’t know what to do, except try to absorb part of the agony, the confusion Nick felt. He’d had time over the past several days to adapt to the idea that he might have a brother. But he’d had no identity to lose, no family he’d spent a lifetime believing his.
“You’re sure?” Morgan finally said, not having to explain more.
“Daniel told me last night. He’d talked to … my mother after his conversation with you.”
Morgan listened as Nick haltingly repeated Daniel’s story and looked directly into Morgan’s eyes. “Why didn’t you say anything to me?”
“I wasn’t certain,” Morgan said.
“And you always have to be certain of everything, don’t you?” Nick asked bitterly. “You seemed certain enough that I’d murdered a boy.”
Morgan realized his hands were clenched into fists. He tried to straighten them, but he couldn’t seem to do it. So much was at stake now. He wanted to reach out to Nick, but he didn’t know how. His brother. His twin brother. And so much pain in him at the moment.
Nick whirled on him. “Dammit, say something.”
“What?” Morgan said quietly. “That I’ve gained something, and you feel you’ve lost a lot? That I have the best of the bargain?”
Nick stared at him, the confusion in his eyes deepening as the words seeped into his consciousness. “You’re …”
“Damn … happy,” Morgan said. He hesitated, not knowing whether Nick wanted to hear what Morgan needed to say. “And proud.”
“Of an outlaw? A man with a price on his head?” The words were flung out, a bitter challenge after weeks of frustration.
Morgan heard his own sigh, and he wished he had the gift of words to say what was in his heart, that he’d learned days, even weeks, ago that Nick was a good man. Loyal. Decent. Courageous. A man anyone would be proud to call brother.
And in the past weeks he had treated Nick little better than a vicious animal. Perhaps because of his own bewildering responses to the man, he’d given him even less consideration than most prisoners. And now Morgan didn’t know how to right things, to explain. Hell, there was no explanation. But he felt compelled to try. “I think … that from the beginning I sensed, maybe even knew, there was something so familiar about you … that, Christ, I don’t know,” Morgan said, and turned away. “What you said yesterday … at the spring. About missing something. I’ve always felt the same. I thought maybe it was because I never had any kind of family, but now I realize that it was you.…”
He stopped. “God help me, I know you hate the whole damn idea. I … don’t blame you. I put you through hell, and I understand …”
He started to walk away.
“Morgan.” Nick’s voice stopped him.
It was the first time Nick had ever called him by his given name. Morgan turned around, waiting. He expected a blow, not the question that came.
“When you … said you wanted to help, days ago, did you suspect anything then?”
“No,” Morgan said. “I just knew then you’d never shoot an unarmed man, much less a boy. I didn’t see that birthmark until yesterday.”
Nick was silent for a long time, then said with a wry quirk of his lips, “It’ll take some getting used to, this idea of having a … twin who’s a lawman.”
Morgan stood absolutely still, wondering whether he had heard correctly.
“It will probably take you longer,” Nick continued, his smile spreading, “to get used to having a somewhat lawless family. You get all of us, you know.” Mischief shaded his words.
Morgan’s gaze met Nick’s. He wondered if his own eyes were clouded, even a little wet, with the same emotions as Nick’s. He felt almost overcome by them, by wonder and discovery and something he couldn’t name. He held out his hand, and Nick took it, clasping it firmly, needing no words as differences drained away.
Morgan was the first to let go, and he hunted in his pocket, bringing out the object he’d purchased in Pueblo. He tossed it to Nick, who caught it easily and grinned as he fingered the harmonica in his hands.
“I thought you hated that harmonica.”
“I did,” Morgan said. “You enjoyed taunting me with that damn thing.”
“My one weapon,” Nick said soberly, remembering those first bitter days, but then he tried a couple of notes and smiled his thanks. Morgan realized his … brother, his … twin was also having difficulty in saying much. But then Nick’s smile disappeared. “Lori? Does she have any idea?”
Morgan shook his head.
“Damn,” Nick said. “I don’t know now whether to be indignant about my sister or … give you brotherly advice.” He looked at Morgan speculatively. “I wonder which of us is the elder.”
Morgan found himself chuckling. It had a rusty sound to it. “I think it’s probably better if we don’t know.”
Nick nodded his agreement, then his brows furrowed together. “What about Lori?”
Morgan had never shared his thoughts with anyone before. He didn’t know if he could, even now. “Are my intentions honorable?”
“Something like that.”
“I … wonder if maybe something of what she thinks she feels is just because of … my resemblance to you.”
Nick stared at him, then smiled. “That cursed nobility again, huh? That’s going to be hard to stomach on a regular basis. Lori and I will always be brother and sister, Morgan, no matter what. And you and I, for whatever reasons, are different enough that she sure as hell couldn’t mistake you for me, or vice versa. For some indecipherable reason, she fell in love with you, not your face.” His smile widened into a grin. “And I have a girl of my own as soon as you get my name cleared. Our name cleared.”
Morgan felt as if he had just been given the moon, and a shot at the stars, in one gift. It was the first gift he remembered, but it made up for all the ones he’d missed. Christ, it was all too much. A brother. And … perhaps Lori. Words stuck in his throat, crowded his heart.
He could merely nod and turn away, feeling the presence of Nick next to him, hearing his low voice. “We’ll work it out, Morgan. Some way. It sure isn’t going to be easy, not after all these years, not after the past month, not for either of us, but last night was one hell of a beginning.”
“You’d make a damn good Ranger,” Morgan said.
“Oh, no,” Nick replied. “All I’ve ever wanted was a home, a ranch to work.” He hesitated. “Have you ever thought about … giving up rangering?”
Morgan shook his head. “It’s all I know, all I’ve ever known. My … our father …”
Pain suddenly reflected in Nick’s eyes, and Morgan understood the uncertainty and confusion roiling around in him. To learn you’re not who you thought you were had to be painful. And he felt that hurting, just as he’d felt that knife that had penetrated Nick days ago. He experienced Nick’s bewilderment, loss, even as a quiet exultation flowed through Morgan.
Nick sighed. “Sometime I would like to hear everything you know. But … not now. I’m still trying to make sense of …” He stopped. “I think we’d better get back. Lori … I’m sure she knows now and is probably going crazy. I’m surprised she’s not here, trying to protect one or the other of us.” He shook his head. “She’s had a rough time lately with her loyalties.”
Morgan stopped, stared at him.
Nick shook his head. “Didn’t you know? She begged me to trust you, but I was just too damn angry. I knew she was in love with you, I knew it since I saw you two kissing at the cabin. Lori’s … well, Lori’s never been interested in a man before, not seriously. I’d never seen that look in her eyes, the way they followed your every damn step. It practically killed her to take my side against yours, but she felt … she had to. I didn’t make things easier,” he said wryly, “even when I saw how it was tearing her apart.”
Morgan took a deep breath. So she had trusted him, after all. It had been Nick who’d hesitated.
He nodded.
“Morgan?” Nick’s voice was hesitan
t. “Don’t blame my mother. She didn’t know you were alive.”
“I won’t. I’m just grateful she saved your life. And it had to take … a great deal of courage to tell what happened after all these years.”
Nick gave him a lazy, grateful smile. “Maybe you won’t be too hard to get used to, after all.”
Lori sat there, disbelieving, as Daniel told her and Andrew about Nick and Morgan.
Her mother sat quietly listening, great weariness and sadness in her eyes. Lori kept looking at her, as if seeking reassurance that what she was hearing was truth. Her mother looked years older, but she nodded occasionally as she listened to words she’d said earlier.
When Daniel mentioned that Morgan had seen the birthmark a day earlier and had suspected that he and Nick might be brothers, Lori felt betrayed, hurt, angry. Morgan had mentioned none of it to her last night. He’d been so quiet, so withdrawn, even when he had held her, just as he had been during so much of the first part of their journey.
She hurt for Nick. She hurt for her mother. She hurt for herself, though she knew Nick would always be her brother, no matter what. Yet it had to be devastating for him to learn after all these years that he’d been born to someone else, that he had a living brother. Especially a man he’d hated so fiercely.
And Morgan. Dear God. She remembered his telling her about growing up. No family. No one to love, or to love him. Now to learn that all this time he had a brother—not only a brother, but a twin. It must have been excruciatingly painful, but he had not told her. He’d never told her much of anything. He had never asked her for much, either, only trust, and she had thrown that in his face by running away and setting up another ambush for him. And yet he had come after her, had risked his life for her and for Nick.
Why didn’t you say anything? she wondered. But she knew. She’d given him no reason to trust her, no reason to confide in her. So he’d been silent last night, even as he’d tried to comfort her in that quiet, even way he had.
Andy was asking a dozen questions, but Lori had none. Her eyes met Beth’s, and she saw the sympathy in them. She rose and walked over to her, and Beth took her cold hands in her own.
“Nick told me last night,” Beth said. “I think he’s come to terms with it.”
“Morgan didn’t say anything,” Lori said stiffly.
“Nick was sure. Morgan wasn’t,” Beth said softly, casting a possessive look down at Maggie, who was playing quietly with a doll in the grass.
Lori looked down at her dress, chosen with such care an hour ago. She had changed clothes quickly after Morgan had left with Nick, putting on a clean dress from the trunk she’d left in the wagon when she’d gone north with Nick. She’d brushed her hair until it shone and had come out to wait for Morgan, when Jonathon and Daniel said there was something she and Andy should know.
Now she felt awkward and foolish. She had told Morgan last night she loved him, and he hadn’t replied. And he’d been almost curt this morning, in a hurry to leave the bed they’d shared, in a hurry to leave her. And he’d not said anything to her about Nick. That hurt worst of all. Something that important to Morgan, that important to all three of them, and he hadn’t even mentioned it.
“They’re coming,” Beth said.
Lori looked up and drew a long breath. They had both shaved this morning—Morgan and Nick—and, as they stood together, the resemblance between them seemed more incredible than ever. Even she had to look twice to tell which was which. Nick’s hair was longer, and he wore his holster on the left. Morgan’s smile was more guarded, his face more weathered. Until now their antipathy toward each other had somehow separated them; now it was gone.
Lori went over to Nick first. He gave her that familiar mischievous smile, the fun-loving glint back in his blue eyes. “You know?”
She nodded her head.
“Hell of a thing, isn’t it?” he asked.
Lori nodded again.
He leaned down and hugged her tight. “You’ll always be my Button, you know.”
She winced at the child’s nickname. “You’ll always be my big brother.”
“Damn right,” he said. His gaze wandered over to his double and back to Lori, and the smile disappeared as he evidently saw her unhappiness. “Ah, hell,” Nick said, “I don’t know who to be brotherly to.” He glared at Morgan. “Do you always have to be so damn uncompromising?”
Morgan regarded him warily.
“Then tell her you love her, for God’s sake,” Nick said in an irritated voice. “I’m not much good at wielding shotguns, especially at a newfound twin.”
Lori felt her face flush, but she managed to meet Morgan’s gaze directly. His was searching. She answered in the only way she knew, with her heart. She was handing it to him. It was all there in her face.
He smiled suddenly, and Lori felt as if a stormy sky had just opened up and revealed a glorious sun. “I think I’d better do what I’m told, Miss Lori,” he said, then looked at Nick. “But in private.”
He took Lori’s hand, leading her first to Fleur Braden. Jonathon and Daniel immediately moved over to her as if to protect. But Morgan merely reached out his free hand and took Fleur’s. “Thank you for helping my mother. Thank you for taking care of Nick so well, and thank you for being courageous enough to give him back to me. I know it must have been … very difficult after all these years.”
Her eyes glittered with tears. Jonathon cleared his throat, but his voice was somewhat raspy when he finally spoke. “Nick’s family is our family. You belong here now, too.”
“Thank you,” Morgan said simply. He turned back to Lori and smiled. A heartbreakingly open smile. And Lori knew she would follow him anywhere. She no longer doubted he had a heart, and she knew now it was the stubbornly forever kind.
“I love you.” Morgan said the words as if they were precious gems, each to be handled very, very carefully.
It had taken him nearly the whole day to say them, because it had taken that long for him to do it privately. But they had finally broken away after dinner, and he had taken her for a walk along the riverbank. The moon was a little larger, a little brighter, and it reflected in the swift, running water of the river. He had suddenly stopped and rubbed his fingers along the contours of her face. And then he’d said the words he’d promised to say.
“I’m sorry about this morning,” he said. “It was so damned hard to leave you, but … I had to know about Nick first. I kept thinking that maybe you … if he wasn’t your brother …” Morgan was stammering like a schoolboy who didn’t know his lesson. “Christ, I don’t know what I thought. I don’t think I’ve had a logical thought since I met you.”
Lori laughed ruefully. “You didn’t show it. I’ve never met anyone so deliberately careful.”
“Self-defense,” he said with a wry smile.
“Why didn’t you tell me what you suspected about Nick?”
“You were gone, and then … all hell broke loose.”
“But … last night …?”
“I wasn’t sure. And I thought he should know first.”
She stretched up on her tiptoes, kissing him slowly, lingeringly, feeling his lips hard against hers. She felt his arms go around her, clasp her tightly as if he were afraid she would disappear.
Her hands went up to his neck, playing with the thick hair. He still smelled of soap from this morning, and some seductively masculine scent that the barber had apparently used. The kiss changed from light and loving to greedy, each seeking more and more of the other, his tongue invading her mouth and hers responding to its sensuous wanderings. She needed him so badly, and that aching, yearning hunger stirred inside her again.
He finally pulled away. “I have so damn little to offer you, Lori.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do,” he said. He pulled far enough away so that he could look at her. “I’m a Ranger, Lori. The pay’s poor. It’s sufficient for a single man, and I have some money saved, but it’s barely adequate for two. I’m g
one most of the year. The life is hell on wives.” The last words were ragged, and Lori realized he had thought of this before. “Dammit, Rangers have no business marrying. Love, contentment takes away the edge. It gets them killed. It makes widows. I don’t want that for you.”
Lori’s happiness seeped away, and a chill started to replace the warmth inside. She knew she would accept any life with him. But could she endanger him? You can leave the Rangers, she wanted to say, but she couldn’t. She knew him well now, knew how much the Texas Rangers were steeped in him. It wasn’t just a job to him, it was who he was. She couldn’t change such an elemental part of him. He would eventually hate her if she tried.
“We’ll work it out,” she said fiercely. “Someway we will.”
Nick’s words. We’ll work it out. Morgan wondered whether he would ever have the same optimism the Braden clan had. He wanted to. God, how he wanted to. He wanted to think he and Lori had a future. Children. He closed his eyes as the image rambled around his mind with unexpected impact. A longing, deeper even than any he’d ever felt, stabbed through him like a jagged knife. Children with Lori. Children to raise as they should be. With love. Could he ever offer that? Love? Security? Safety?
Or would he leave orphans?
He felt the cry of pain deep in his throat. He wasn’t aware, however, that it reached the air until he saw Lori’s face, the mixture of compassion and grief and fear on it. Desperately, he reached for her, clasping her as a choking man struggling for air. She was that important to him now. As essential to him as breathing.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I’ll never love anyone else like this. No matter what, I’ll always love you.”
The words, instead of a balm, only deepened his agony. He felt ripped apart. He knew he should leave, leave now, but he couldn’t, not when she was so near, not when she offered everything she had. He’d never known that kind of giving. He’d never been presented with a heart before, had never felt loved, wanted, and it was irresistible. He had been empty so long. So … alone. All his life.
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