THE BADDEST BRIDE IN TEXAS

by Maggie Shayne

  "It's over now, Phillip. Killing me now will do you no good."

  "You rejected me," he said. "Just like she did. You never once acknowledged me as your brother, not in all the time you and Joseph lived in that house. You barely even spoke to me."

  "I didn't know…"

  "I don't have any reason to live now, but I'm damned well not leaving you behind to collect the millions that should have been mine."

  "Let us both live," she whispered. "And I'll share it with you."

  He stared down into her eyes, and for a long moment, seemed to be thinking. Then he shook his head. "They know now. About Joseph. And Hawkins… They'll put me in prison for that. It doesn't matter." He glanced down, and she was compelled by some masochistic impulse to do the same. The ground seemed a mile away, and it spun lazily below. He leaned closer to the rail.

  "Why did you kill Hawkins?" she asked in desperation.

  Phillip stilled again. "He drew up the will. And he figured out that I was the one who killed Joseph and guessed I planned to kill you, too." He shook his head. "I wasn't going to at first, you know. I was just going to let you go to prison. You wouldn't have inherited a thing then. I would have gotten it all. But you had to run away. You had to snoop. You and that Adam Brand. And I couldn't risk letting you live, because you might have found out the truth."

  She nodded. "You didn't want to kill me. Because I'm your sister. Your blood, Phillip. You still don't want to hurt me. I know you don't."

  "I don't have any choice now." He blinked at her, his moist brown eyes looking like the eyes of a wounded child. "You rejected me."

  "Joseph never told me," she said again, enunciating each word. "He never told me, Phillip, I swear!"

  "I don't believe you."

  He lunged forward, but taking them to the railing forced him to remove his weight from the trapdoor. Adam burst up through. Elliot shouted from below, and Kirsten was shocked to see him scaling the steep roof, feet slipping, finding a hold as he risked his life.

  But it was too late. Phillip wrenched himself over the rail, clutching her to him as he did. And then he hung there, toes on the very edge, fingers curled around the rail, his back to eternity, one arm anchoring her to his side.

  "Don't move. Don't move," he said, to Adam, to her, to Elliot. She was never certain. She only knew neither of the Brands could get to her in time, and she knew Phillip was determined to kill her and himself. If she couldn't get him to let go of her, she was going to die. There was no one to do anything about it but her.

  The pen pricked her forearm. She blinked, then worked it into her palm. "Please let me go, Phillip," she whispered.

  "I'm sorry. But I can't."

  The hand holding the rail let go. At the same time, Kirsten jabbed his other hand—the one holding her captive—with the pen. And it, too, let go.

  She scrambled, paddling air with frantic arms, and gripped the rail with one desperate grasp. Phillip fell away behind her. She couldn't look. He never cried out, never made a sound. The thud of his body hitting the earth made her stomach heave. And the weakness caused by the pills he'd force-fed her made her grip tenuous, at best.

  "Hold on!" Adam leaned over the rail, clasped her hand in his. Then he reached for her other hand, the one dangling in space. With firm, quiet power, he hauled her back over the rail and into his arms.

  And she thought that in all the time she'd known him, he had never held her as tightly as he did then. Nor had he whispered her name over and over with so much emotion. Nor had he ever, ever, dampened her hair with his tears.

  Or whispered that he loved her with quite so much conviction.

  "I've got you, honey," he kept saying. "God, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I walked away. I love you, Kirsten. You hear me? I love you."

  Was it the trauma? The stress she'd been under? The pills Phillip had fed her? Was all this some nightmare that had turned itself into her fondest dream? Or could he possibly mean it?

  * * *

  Chapter 14

  « ^ »

  Adam scooped her up, glanced over the rail and saw Garrett crouched beside Phillip's body. Garrett looked up, met Adam's eyes and shook his head slowly, side to side.

  Adam sighed.

  "Give me a hand, will you, big brother?" One of Elliot's hands appeared at the railing. Then the other, and then his head rose up behind them.

  Cradling Kirsten, Adam reached for his brother with his free hand and helped Elliot over.

  "She okay?" Elliot asked, once he got his feet on solid ground.

  Adam shifted her weight, examined her face. "I sure as hell hope so. She's been through hell."

  "Yeah, and not just today, either."

  Elliot opened the trapdoor, then went through first and watched as Adam followed him down, ready to react if Adam stumbled. His brother seemed to think pretty highly of his woman, Adam thought, not unkindly.

  He'd have to ask El to be his best man.

  Right after he asked Kirsten to be his wife.

  It took forever, he thought, to get down to ground level, but when he did, the whole clan was there waiting. They closed in around Kirsten as he held her. Lash pulled in with the pickup truck, and Wes yanked the door open. "Best get her to a hospital," he said. "She's probably just been fed a half bottle or so of those sleeping pills. She'll be okay, though."

  Adam started to ease her into the pickup, but she stirred awake, opened her eyes, looked around at all the concerned faces surrounding her. She sniffed once and bit her lip. "You all … you all came here to help me?"

  "'Course we did," Penny said. "And it's all over now. You're gonna be fine."

  "But … but…" She stiffened a little in Adam's arms as she looked up at him. "Do they know … do they know what I did?"

  "We know," Jessi said, and she reached out to stroke Kirsten's hair. "And it doesn't matter, Kirsten."

  "It was an accident," Garrett added.

  "And besides, you were just a kid," Wes said.

  "Honey, we all make mistakes," Ben told her. And offered her a smile of encouragement.

  "Besides," Elliot declared, "you're family."

  She shook her head slowly, eyes wide with disbelief. "I don't know what to say."

  "Say you'll come to us next time you get in trouble, Kirsten," Penny told her. "We'll be there for you if you ever do. Promise."

  Adam lifted Kirsten and settled her into the pickup truck. Then he went around to the other side and got in. As he put the vehicle into motion, Kirsten leaned against him, and he slipped his arm around her shoulders.

  "Is Phillip…?" she whispered.

  Adam swallowed hard. "He didn't make it. I'm sorry, Kirsty."

  He felt the shudder that went through her. "He … he was my brother."

  "I know. I know, hon." He held her closer, and she cried softly for a long time.

  When her tears eased, she lifted her head. Her eyes were clouded, dim, but she seemed more coherent than before. "I want to see my father," she told him. "I … I need to explain … everything."

  "We'll do that when we go to pick him up, Kirsten. The second Doc gives you a clean bill of health and Garrett clears things up with the rangers, we're heading for Dallas. All right?"

  She blinked up at him. "We … we are?"

  Adam nodded. "I know your head's swimming right now, hon, but I've got some things to say to you that are gonna bust a hole in my gut if I don't get them out."

  "All … all right."

  "I was a fool, Kirsten. I was a fool two years ago for not loving you enough. For letting you walk away from me. For not believing in what we had enough to know you wouldn't have done that of your own free will. I should have come after you, Kirsten, but I ran away instead, and I'm sorry for that."

  He glanced down at her, checking to make sure she was still awake and alert. She needed to hear him, to understand him. He figured he probably ought to wait until Doc had cleared her system of whatever was floating around in it to tell her all of this, but dammit, he c
ouldn't wait.

  "I'm even sorrier I walked away this time. When you told me the truth. But it was grief, Kirsten. It was shock, and anger, and it didn't mean a damn thing. Shoot, I wasn't gone twenty minutes before I knew I was making a big mistake. And it turned out to be twenty minutes that damn near cost your life. Can you forgive me, Kirsten?"

  She drew a deep breath, seemed to be struggling to keep him in focus, blinking and squinting by turns. "There's nothing to forgive, Adam. I'm the one who needs forgiveness, if you can give it. And I'll understand if you can't."

  "You're wrong about that," he told her. "I understand—hell, the whole family understands now—what you went through, how it all ended up at this point. No one blames you."

  "I blame me."

  "Well, you shouldn't. Because I don't. Kirsten, I'm back, one hundred percent. And I'm not going to walk away from you again. Now I know I told you that before, but I mean it this time. I'll swear it on my daddy's grave, if it'll help you believe in me again—"

  "I never stopped believing in you, Adam."

  He glanced down at her as he pulled in to Doc's driveway. "Then give me another chance, Kirsty. Let's start over. Let's have that wedding we planned and buy that ranch we wanted. Let's bring your father home to live with us. I want all those things Cowan stole from us. And I think you do, too. We can have them, Kirsty. All of them. All we have to do is reach out and take them."

  Tears brimmed in her eyes. Adam reached up to brush them away. "Say you'll marry me, honey."

  "You … you really want to marry me? Even after all I've done…?"

  "I've never wanted anything else," he told her. "Not really. I convinced myself I did, for a while, but that was bull. I love you, Kirsten. I need you. This whole family needs you."

  Her tears were streaming now.

  "So will you marry me, Kirsten? Will you be my wife the way you should have been all along?"

  "You know I will," she whispered. "I will."

  Adam leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers. She kissed him back for a moment, and then went limp in his arms. He could taste the salt of tears on his lips. But when he lifted his head away, she was out cold. "Lord help me," he said. "I sure as hell hope you meant that."

  Then he scooped her up and carried her into Doc's office.

  * * *

  Epilogue

  « ^

  Kirsten stood in front of a three-way mirror. She hadn't been able to shut the tears off long enough yet to apply any makeup, and she was thinking she might have to do without it for the ceremony, because the past few days had been one surprise after another.

  Besides, she didn't need it as much anymore. She didn't have to hide now. Adam knew all her secrets … and he loved her anyway.

  He loved her anyway.

  When she and Adam had picked her father up in Dallas to bring him home once and for all, her father had told her his own secrets. He'd known all along that her first wedding to Adam had never taken place. That something had gone wrong. He'd just been biding his time in the nursing home, hoping to get his strength back enough to come back to Quinn and find out what had happened to throw his little girl's life so far off-track.

  He'd held her while she'd cried. And then the second surprise came. He'd handed her a huge box, gaily wrapped. And she'd opened it up to find the wedding gown—the one she'd left behind, along with all her dreams, over two years ago.

  "You saved it?" she'd whispered. "But … but how … when?"

  "It doesn't matter," he'd said, and hugged her. "I always knew the day would come when you'd need it again. Now, go and put it on. I never got to see you in it the first time you wore it, and I think I've waited long enough."

  So had she. The dress still fit, and it felt right. Perfect. Even more now than it had before.

  There was a tap on the door to the tiny room at the back of the chapel. "Can I come in yet?" her father asked through the wood.

  "Yes, Daddy. Come in."

  He opened the door, and she turned in a rustle of ivory satin. "My, my," he whispered. "I've never seen anything so beautiful in all my days." Her father's blue eyes teared up as he held out his arms, and she rushed into them.

  "I'm going to make up for everything, Daddy," she whispered. "You're going to be so happy with Adam and me."

  "So long as you're happy, sweetheart, I will be, too."

  "We all will be," she promised.

  A throat cleared, and she drew back from her father's embrace to look toward the doorway. Elliot stood there, holding a bouquet and looking drop-dead gorgeous in his tux. "Can I come in? I could come back later…"

  "Come in," Kirsten said.

  He did, tugging at his collar. He handed her the bouquet of lilies and orchids, with their draping ivory ribbons. "Adam wanted me to bring this to you … and, uh, to make sure you had everything you needed."

  She lifted her brows. "And to make sure I didn't forget to show up this time?"

  Elliot smiled. "I didn't say that."

  "No, but I'll bet he did."

  "He knows you'll be there, hon. But you know, as best man, I figured I'd double-check. There is a back way out of here, after all. I could just picture my brother if you should get abducted by aliens or something, and be late. He'd probably pass out cold." Elliot was grinning, that infectious, happy smile of his that never failed to ooze charm. "I've never seen him so nervous."

  A whole chorus of female voices rose from the hallway, and Kirsten turned in time to see her beautiful sisters-in-law piling into the room. Chelsea was straightening a stray bit of Taylor's hair, while Taylor smoothed a fold in the hem of Jessi's dress and Jessi picked a piece of lint from Chelsea's shoulder. They all stopped fussing when they looked at Kirsten. They went still, then started talking all at once.

  Then they shooed the men out and descended on her in one mass, wielding combs, brushes, makeup and jewelry.

  It wasn't long before she was ready. The organ music swelled from the small chapel, and Kirsten licked her lips. "Oh, gosh," she whispered. "Okay, here goes."

  Chelsea stood in the doorway and helped little Maria Michele—who'd been walking for only a month now—and Bubba get started. Bubba held the toddler's hand, obviously feeling like a big strong Brand man already, assisting his little cousin down the aisle.

  Chelsea followed. Then Taylor, and then Jessi.

  Penny, as maid of honor, went next. Kirsten peered through a crack in the door of the little room at the back of the church and watched her progress. Her father squeezed her hand when her turn came. She squeezed back.

  He took her arm, and they started down the aisle. She looked up, saw Adam standing there at the other end, waiting for her, and knew that her life was finally beginning. His eyes met hers. He mouthed, "I love you."

  "I love you, too," she whispered back. "I love you, too."

  * * * * *