THE BADDEST BRIDE IN TEXAS

by Maggie Shayne

  She didn't know why the hell she was wasting her time, taking this chance. She should just run for it, now, before it was too late. But damn the still small voice inside her head—the one that kept whispering that she had to make sure.

  Sure of what?

  Sure that there was no hope. Sure that it was all over, that leaving was her only option.

  And sure that Adam really meant what he'd said—that he wanted nothing more to do with her. Because if she hung around just a little while longer, gave him time to think it through, he might just change his mind.

  And letting herself believe that was probably the most self-destructive thing she'd done yet, and that was saying something.

  She drew the horses to a stop in the backyard of Stephen Hawkins' small house, took a wary look around and saw no one. In fact, it was so quiet and still, it was eerie. The curtains of the tiny house were drawn tight, and not a single light shone from within. But the tin-can strains of a radio made their way from somewhere inside the dim house.

  She looped both mares' reins around a low-hanging limb and walked closer. The back door stood at the top of a small set of steps. Beside them a bird feeder was mounted atop a pole. But no birds were hanging out there today. She didn't even hear any singing.

  She walked up the steps, pulled open the screen door, tapped on the wooden one. While she waited for an answer, she identified the song playing from inside. Not a radio. A record album, from the sounds of it. An old Hank Williams tune, skipping and playing the same broken, fragmented line over and over again.

  Something twisted in Kirsten's belly, and she knocked again. As she did, she sent a sideways glance toward the driveway at the side of the house. She could see the front fender of Stephen's car. So he was here, then. Maybe just not up yet.

  Yeah. Maybe he's sleeping through that incessantly skipping record.

  She pounded harder on the door. "Stephen?" she called. "Are you here?"

  No answer. Swallowing what felt like a coating of sand on her throat, she tried the knob, and it gave. When she let it go, the door swung slowly open, and Kirsten stepped inside. One step, a glance to the left, a glance to the right…

  Big mistake.

  Stephen Hawkins was hanging limply from a rope, just above the kitchen table. It was tied to the light fixture up there. On the floor behind him, the chair he'd used to help him kill himself lay toppled on its back. His face was mottled, mouth agape, tongue…

  She turned away as the scream ripped from her chest and filled the entire house.

  Running footsteps came from outside, up the back steps, and then a man was gripping her shoulders, looking past her, swearing softly. Elliot Brand.

  He tucked her head to his chest, anchoring her there with a solid arm around her shoulders, and he took her outside, away from the horror.

  She didn't know what the hell Adam's brother was doing there … she was just glad he was.

  "It's okay," he was saying. "It's okay."

  She couldn't stop shaking, couldn't stop her teeth from chattering.

  Elliot hugged her against him as he walked away from the house. He put her on one of the horses, climbed up behind her, put his arms around her waist.

  "We … we can't just leave him … like that," she whispered.

  "I'll call Garrett. But before I do that, I need to stash you someplace safe. Where the hell is Adam? What is he thinking, letting you wander around town all alone, anyway?"

  He looked down at her as he asked the question, nudging the horse into gear, wrapping the other one's reins around the pommel even as they lurched into motion.

  "He … I…" She choked on her tears. "He's gone. He hates me now."

  "Bull."

  "It's not bull. You will, too, soon enough."

  "Now I know that's bull. Where is he, hon?"

  She swallowed hard. "Last I saw him, he was headed toward the Badlands, out where they almost meet the road off the north edge of town. He was … he was pretty upset. I hurt him, Elliot."

  "He'll be all right."

  "I hope so."

  "He's a Brand. He'll be all right." He kicked the horse into a canter and maneuvered them away from the main roads, cutting across back lawns and fields until they got to the other side of town.

  "Here we are." Elliot stopped the horses and helped her to the ground. They were looking back on Jessi Brand's Veterinary Clinic and the neat cottage beside it. "Jess isn't back yet," Elliot explained. "You'll be safe here until I take care of this whole mess." He dug in his pocket for a key, ushered her inside his sister's home and closed the door behind them. Then he snatched up the phone and punched numbers.

  Kirsten looked around. The place was cozy. Earth tones and lots of hardwood. A rocking chair with a ruffled cushion, where Jessi Brand probably spent happy hours rocking her little girl, while her loving husband looked on adoringly.

  Envy twisted like a blade in her belly. She would never know that kind of normalcy or comfort … or love. The only things that surrounded her were ugly things. Death and fear and lies. She couldn't believe that was ever likely to change.

  "Garrett," Elliot was saying into the receiver. "You'd better get out to Stephen Hawkins' place. He's dead. Looks like a suicide."

  There was a loud response from the other end, but Elliot interrupted. "No time now. Just get out there. I'll talk to you later." And Elliot hung up.

  He turned to Kirsten, gripped her shoulders and eased her into a soft, overstuffed chair. "Now I have to go check on Adam. But I'll be back soon. Are you gonna be all right?"

  She nodded, but it was false. She didn't feel all right. She felt dazed and disoriented and pretty well devastated to boot.

  "Yeah, sure you are. You're the furthest thing from all right. You just stay put, lady. Okay? You just curl up here…" He pushed her a little, gently, until she lay back in the chair. Then he pulled a blanket from the back of it and tucked it around her. "Just rest here until I get back, okay?"

  She nodded.

  Elliot stood there looking at her for a long moment. "That brother of mine is some kind of fool to have left you behind."

  "No," she whispered. "No. Leaving me was the smartest thing he ever did."

  Adam kept walking, heading away from the barn where he'd taken her, where they'd spent the night. The place where that barn sat—the old Recknor ranch—was one of the places he and Kirsten had once thought of buying together. It was one of the places they'd talked about refurbishing, turning into their dude ranch. It was also the first place they had made love, that big, shadowy old barn.

  And it was the place where it had all fallen apart, at long last. About two years overdue, that breakdown. But it had happened in the same place where they had first begun to learn from each other what love was. Ironic.

  He would never go back to that barn again. Never. He would never even drive by the Recknor place again, if he could help it. It ate at his pride to think he had been stupid enough to let some of those old dreams slip back into his mind, his heart. To think he had been gullible enough to hope, even for a minute, that they could come true after all.

  He headed out toward the desert, walking faster with every step, then running. All-out, long, powerful strides. The wind swept his hat off and sent it tumbling through the dust behind him, but he didn't give a damn. He ran until the hot Texas sun sizzled on his skin and the sweat ran into his eyes and stung and burned. The pain was good. He ran until his legs screamed and his muscles ached and his head swam and his lungs begged. And then he ran some more. He wanted the pain. He wanted the exhaustion. Anything to drown out the sound of his heart breaking. Anything to squelch the memories.

  But nothing would end those memories, would it? He could see it all again. That sunny day at the cemetery, staring in grim silence at the two shiny hardwood boxes, all strewn with flowers, suspended over empty, open graves. Oh, the pits were hidden from view by the pretty cloths draped over them. But a kid of fifteen knew well enough what was underneath. A kid of fifte
en knew what was inside. A kid knew that all the flowers and pretty words were bull, and that death was the ugliest thing there was.

  And he knew he never wanted to hurt like that again. And he wouldn't. He was determined that he wouldn't.

  He'd stood, holding his little brother's hand. Elliot had been crying real soft. For days he'd been crying. His nose and eyes were raw from the sting of bitter tears. And it wasn't fair, dammit. It wasn't fair that his little brother had to suffer that way … that any of them had to suffer that way.

  Adam ran as the memories spun around in his mind, and he felt the pain and the rage boiling up inside him in a way they never had. He stopped running only when his strength gave out. His body gave up. He fell facedown on the parched, splitting ground and tasted baked dirt on his lips.

  And then the storm hit him. A storm he'd never felt, even in the height of his rage. His hands clenched, fingers digging into the sunbaked earth. Teeth bared, eyes tight and burning, he whispered, "Sweet heaven, why? Why the hell did it have to be them? Why did they leave us all alone like that? What right did they have to put a bunch of kids through that kind of heartbreak?"

  The tears came … years and years worth of them. The tears of a child mourning the deaths of his mama and his daddy. A child unable to express his grief or his sadness by any means other than rage and anger. The grief, so long held captive, was finally given release.

  He sobbed. He had never cried this way in his life. Hell, he hadn't shed a tear since that horrible, black day when his world had fallen apart. Not one tear had fallen. Not one.

  But he shed them now.

  Why?

  Why? The question kept coming back, over and over. Why now? Eventually the storm subsided, but the question remained. It begged his exploration. It demanded his attention. And as he lay there, limp in the aftermath of that emotional onslaught, his mind cleared a bit, and he realized the answer was simple.

  He had never loved anyone the way he had loved his parents … not until now. He'd thought he had, but he hadn't, not really. And he had never lost someone who meant as much to him as they had. Not until now.

  The storm might have abated, but the pain remained. God, it hurt. He had sworn never to hurt this way again. Yet here it was, swamping him, taking away coherent thought, paralyzing in its power. He wanted to curl into a ball or crawl into a black hole and never emerge. He wanted to drown in the pain until it ended.

  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 toddler 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 chubby-faced toddler crying for his mother. Asking innocently, trustingly, when Daddy was coming home.

  The next thing Adam knew, he'd slammed his arms around his kid 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 … I 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 then spent the next twenty years lying 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 inlaws?" 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. A twenty-year-old accident at that.

  "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 a twenty-year-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 sud
denly 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.