Unspoken

by Lisa Jackson

  Shelby’s head whipped around. She saw the plane, just a speck in the sky. Her stomach squeezed and sudden doubts assailed her. What if Elizabeth rejected her, what if they didn’t like each other, what if—

  Nevada’s hands grabbed her shoulders, and before she could think, he dragged her across the pickup and kissed her hard on the lips. All her misgivings scattered as his lips pressed against hers. He finally lifted his head. “For luck,” he explained, his voice rough as he released her. “You can do this, Shelby. I know it. You’ll be the best damned mother that ever lived.”

  “I hope so,” she said, still stunned at the passion that had transferred from his skin to hers. Tears threatened her eyes. “Oh, God, Nevada, I hope for once you’re right.”

  “Aren’t I always?”

  “No. Never.” Laughing nervously, she scrambled out of the cab as the sound of the plane’s engines broke through the stillness of the summer air. Holding a hand over her forehead as a visor, Shelby, with Nevada at her side, watched the craft glide into a landing. With a bump of tires hitting the tarmac, the plane was down.

  Her child was here. They would finally meet.

  Shelby’s heart squeezed. She bit her lower lip. Fought tears. “Elizabeth,” she whispered as the plane taxied to a stop. Within minutes, three people emerged. The pilot helped Maria and a spindly-legged girl in denim shorts and a matching jacket hop to the ground.

  Tears stung Shelby’s eyes. A morning breeze smelling of dust and cut grass teased her nostrils and ruffled the girl’s tangled, shoulder-length hair.

  Shelby didn’t protest when Nevada placed a steadying arm around her shoulders, and silently she told herself she wouldn’t break down. Wouldn’t shed a solitary tear.

  Elizabeth clung to Maria. Her face was white, her eyes wide and round, her steps unsure. Oh, Lord, this was going to be tough.

  “Hello,” Shelby forced out as they neared, and Maria, one arm around the girl she’d raised, flashed a halting smile.

  “Shelby,” she said. “I remember.” Maria’s eyes moved to Nevada. “And you, too.”

  “Everything okay here?” the pilot, carrying luggage, asked. Tall and lanky, his sunglasses barely masking his impatience, he checked his watch. “That’s it for the luggage. If you need anything else, let me know. If not, I’ve got another run to make.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Nevada said. “Thanks.” He shook the pilot’s hand, but his eyes never left the gangly girl—the nine-year-old who might be his daughter.

  “Isabella,” Maria said to Elizabeth. “This is Señora Cole, the woman I told you about.”

  Elizabeth looked scared to death. She clung to Maria and shook her head. “No,” she whispered, and Shelby’s heart cracked.

  “But you have always wanted to meet your mother.”

  Elizabeth’s face twisted in despair and she began sobbing, speaking rapidly in Spanish.

  “No, no, she is your mother, but she did not ...” More Spanish as Maria leaned down and held Elizabeth closer still. Shelby’s heart broke into a thousand pieces, and were it not for Nevada’s strength her own legs might have given way. “Shh, shh ...” Maria said and Shelby finally pulled out of Nevada’s embrace.

  “I know this is hard,” she said to the girl. Kneeling, she looked her child in the eye. “Very hard. For all of us. But believe me, I won’t do anything to hurt you or make you feel uncomfortable. I love you, Elizabeth, and—”

  “Isabella,” the girl cried.

  “Yes, yes, Isabella.” Slowly, so as not to frighten her, Shelby gathered her into her arms. The girl was as stiff as a board. “Whatever you want to be called. I ...” Shelby’s throat caught and she took in a shuddering breath. “I just want you to know that I missed you and I love you and I’m glad you’re here now. If I’d known where you were earlier, I would have come for you. I would have brought you ... here.” She wanted to say she would have brought her home, but they were in Bad Luck, Texas, a place she no longer considered her home and certainly not Elizabeth’s.

  “See,” Maria encouraged the child. “You always said you wanted to meet your mother.” Shoving her bangs from her eyes, Maria straightened and said to Shelby, “Isabella, she has known she is ... adopted.”

  “What about my father?” Elizabeth asked, squinting up at Maria, then swinging her glance in Nevada’s direction. “Where is he?”

  Oh, God, now what? “You’ll meet him soon,” Shelby said.

  “For now, I guess I’ll just have to do.” Nevada stuck out a big hand, shook Elizabeth’s small palm and offered her one of his blindingly irresistible smiles. “We’ll catch up with the old man later.”

  “Sure. Right. We’ll work things out,” Shelby said, her arms feeling empty as she let go of Elizabeth. She would have loved nothing more than to hug her daughter, to hold her close and never let go, but right now it would be best to take things slowly, let Elizabeth get used to the idea that she had a new mother. “Come on, I’ll drive us all back to the ranch. From there we’ll switch cars and head into town.” She forced a smile she didn’t feel as Nevada threw the few bags of luggage into the bed of the truck. “You can meet your grandfather.”

  “Abuelo,” Maria said reassuringly. “Grandpapa.”

  Elizabeth didn’t smile, and Shelby didn’t blame her. As it was, the girl had no idea that her grandfather wanted nothing to do with her, had pretended she was dead and now was going to die himself. A tremendous pressure threatened to squeeze the breath from her lungs, but Shelby refused to give in to it. It was just life—a life of challenges, problems that would be dealt with. At least now she had her child.

  Finally.

  With Nevada at her side, Shelby watched as Maria helped Elizabeth into the backseat of the big truck. Elizabeth was nervous and avoided looking directly at Shelby, or Nevada for that matter. Hang in there, she’ll come around. She has to, Shelby told herself, forcing a smile she didn’t feel and pretending her heart wasn’t bruised in a billion places.

  Once inside the truck, she threw it into gear and swung wide, turning around in the sun-bleached stubble and driving back to the heart of her father’s ranch. Nevada didn’t say much, just stared through the window, his jaw set as if in stone, the crow’s feet near the corners of his eyes prominent as he squinted and leaned an elbow through the open window.

  God only knew what thoughts were rattling around in his mind as the sun continued to rise in the sky. Was Elizabeth his? Or Ross McCallum’s? The sickening taste of bile rose in the back of Shelby’s throat.

  Take it slow, she told herself. Time is on your side. Things will work out. Don’t borrow trouble. Time heals all wounds. But the platitudes that ricocheted through her mind seemed hollow and empty, sentiments that should be pasted into a get-well card for a mental patient rather than used as her own life’s guides. Already there had been too much lost time; it could never be recaptured, and every minute Elizabeth rejected her was one more minute thrown away.

  Hazarding a glance in the rearview mirror, she saw blue, suspicious eyes staring at her as if she were some kind of witch. Great. Just damned great. Give me strength, Shelby silently prayed, then noticed Nevada stiffen on the seat next to her as the outbuildings of the ranch appeared. He swore under his breath, his eyes focused dead ahead.

  She was about to ask what was wrong, but as her eyes followed his gaze, she felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach.

  Parked near the stables and glinting in the morning sunlight was a cruiser from the Sheriff’s Department Deputy Shep Marson, in full uniform and reflective sunglasses, leaned against one fender, his eyes trained on them.

  Shelby swallowed against a suddenly dry mouth.

  For a split second, Shelby wanted to crank hard on the wheel, turn the truck around and tromp on the accelerator. Sweat dotted her brow, and her insides turned to stone. No one had to say a word.

  With a horrible sinking sensation, Shelby realized that Nevada Smith was about to be arrested for the murder of Ramón Estevan.


  Chapter Nineteen

  “This is insane,” Shelby said, glowering at her father in the billiard room of their house. “I watched as Shep cuffed Nevada and hauled him away.” Her heart had twisted, her blood was still boiling and she’d wanted to punch Shep Marson in his big belly. There had been a look of satisfaction on his beefy face as he snapped the cuffs on Nevada’s wrists, then held Nevada’s head down as he’d nudged him into the backseat of his cruiser.

  “Smith was never any good, Shelby,” Judge Cole said. “Face it.”

  “Can’t you do something?”

  The Judge barked out a mirthless laugh. “So now you want me to pull some strings, do you?”

  “Yes!” she said, then lowered her voice. Her daughter and Maria were upstairs resting after a stiff, formal greeting from the Judge.

  “I offered to call the Stahancyk firm.”

  “But Nevada didn’t kill Ramón Estevan! You know it and I know it.”

  “It’s the evidence. It’s all pointing his way.”

  “What about the testimony? No one saw him with Ramón that night.”

  “Vianca’s changed her story.”

  “Then she’s a damned liar! What about Ruby Dee? She saw McCallum with Ramón that night.” Shelby glanced up to see Lydia puttering in the kitchen. The woman had to be dead tired and jangled, just as Shelby was. But the housekeeper had changed, dressed neatly in her standard black dress and crisp white apron, her graying hair pinned away from her face. She was humming to herself as she always did and humming softly as she began marinading pork tenderloins, preparing for the first family dinner only a couple of hours in the future.

  “I can’t stand this,” Shelby ranted. As desperate as she had been to find her daughter, now she had to help Nevada—for no matter what, whether he turned out to be Elizabeth’s biological father or not, Shelby loved him. With all her stupid heart. She loved the damned man. “I’m not going to sit around and do nothing while Nevada’s being set up for a crime he didn’t commit.” She marched out of the room, and as she breezed through the kitchen, she said to Lydia, “Please make sure that Maria and Elizabeth are comfortable. I—I’ll be back soon.”

  “Do not worry,” Lydia said with a smile.

  “I’m afraid that’s all I do,” she grumbled. “And you”—Shelby yelled to her father as she grabbed her purse—“why don’t you try to get to know your granddaughter!” With that she was out the door.

  Flipping off the television in her cramped, dingy motel room, Katrina smelled a story. A bigger story than McCallum’s release. The local news had reported that Nevada Smith had been arrested and charged with Ramón Estevan’s murder.

  Katrina wasn’t buying it. Oh, sure, it was the line of bull Ross McCallum had been pitching her way, and she’d learned that the murder weapon that had been used in the Estevan murder had been found on the piece of property Smith owned, but the only reason the local fuzz had found it was because of an anonymous tip, not because of any prime investigative work within the Sheriff’s Department. Not in this podunk, backwater town.

  Katrina was a firm believer that if it looked, smelled and sounded like a setup, then goddamn it, it was a setup. But who was behind it and why?

  Who would most benefit from Nevada Smith’s incarceration? Who would get money, satisfaction or revenge? Who wanted him to pay—or take the fall?

  Lying on the sagging bed in her black cotton panties and bra, she flipped through her notes and drummed her fingers on the night table. She considered those people closest to the crime—the Estevans, of course. Aloise, Roberto and Vianca, along with Roberto’s wife. Ross McCallum had already served time for a crime he swore he didn’t commit. Nevada Smith had been involved with Vianca at one time, but so had other men, and Roberto had never gotten along with his father.

  Judge Cole—Daddy Dearest, as Katrina had come to think of him—didn’t like the “uppity Mexican” and he hadn’t been alone. Many of the Anglos in town objected to Ramón’s way of making money. But who hated him enough or would profit enough from his death to actually pull the trigger? Who would kill him and when, ten years later, the man convicted of the crime was set free, call with an anonymous tip about the whereabouts of the murder weapon—or better yet, plant the damned weapon himself?

  Katrina didn’t know, but she intended to find out. She rolled off the bed and slid into a T-shirt and short bib overalls. Stretching her back, she stepped into her thongs, then sprayed gel through her hair, ran her fingers under the tap, and finally jammed them through her hair, creating some lift and halfway fashionable spikes. As if anyone in Bad Luck would know the difference. God, it was hot here. Splashing some water over her neck and forehead, she let the drops evaporate rather than towel them off, then found her purse. Starting for the door of the motel room, she stopped dead in her tracks, opened her handbag and peered inside.

  The pistol was still at her fingertips.

  Good.

  Clasping her purse shut, she walked outside to the coming night. The air felt as thick and sticky as tar. The cars that rolled down the street moved slowly, as if they, too, were sluggish from the heat. Storm clouds, swollen with rain, were rolling in, bringing darkness a little earlier than was usual. Katrina locked the door behind her and only hoped the rain would bring some relief from this damned, incessant heat.

  She was bound to be disappointed.

  The first raindrops plopped on the Caddy’s windshield, streaking the dust. Shelby flipped on the wipers only to smear the glass and make it impossible to see. She’d cranked the air-conditioning on full blast and had rolled the window down, but she was still sweating like a pig, furious that Nevada had been arrested, torn because she wanted to be with her daughter and yet she had to find a way to prove Nevada’s innocence.

  “A few more minutes won’t hurt things,” she told herself as she drove through town. She had the feeling that she was being followed, but decided she was just being paranoid, a trait that ran in the Cole family.

  Tired, stressed-out, anxious about Nevada and Elizabeth, she only imagined sinister headlights tracking her down. No one was following her. And yet ... she continued to check her side and rearview mirrors.

  She’d spent the past two hours trying to locate Nevada and Shep, hoping to do something to stop the slow-moving wheels of justice from crushing the wrong man. She’d checked with the county jail, the Sheriff’s Department, called Shep’s home and even tracked down Ruby Dee, but had gotten nowhere.

  “I don’t think Nevada killed him any more than you do,” Ruby had said nervously at the door of her apartment in Cooperville, “but there’s nothing I can say or do to prove it.” She’d touched Shelby on the shoulder. “Just be careful, okay? Ross McCallum’s in town and he ...” She’d stared straight into Shelby’s eyes. Fear radiated from her. “To be honest, Shelby, he scares the hell out of me. He’s not someone to mess around with. Stay clear of him.”

  “I intend to,” Shelby had said, but if proving Nevada’s innocence meant facing McCallum again, so be it. A part of her quivered and turned to ice inside, but she wouldn’t give up. Couldn’t. Her fingers curled around the steering wheel in a death grip. Beneath her skin, her knuckles showed white.

  Shelby loved Nevada. That was the damned plain truth of it. Those initials carved into the underside of the hitching post by the pharmacy were just as true today as they had been when she’d foolishly notched them into the wood ten years earlier.

  She drove through town, past Estevans’ market, where she saw Maria’s brother, Enrique, manning the till. Past the White Horse, where music thrummed through the sticky evening air and farther on, past her father’s office, where less than twenty-four hours before, she’d learned about Elizabeth’s whereabouts.

  “This is no use,” she said, seeing headlights in her mirror. She took a comer, and the truck followed. Her jaw clamped, whether in fear or anger with herself, she didn’t know. She turned down a side street. The truck didn’t make the turn. “Silly,” she said
, snapping on the radio and listening to a soft country-and-western ballad as she wound through town.

  Someone was behind her again. She didn’t pay any attention. Driving with one hand, she let the other elbow rest on the open window, where raindrops fell on her bare skin. She drove past several houses and ended up slowing in front of the Estevan bungalow, where lights were glowing. Though she and Vianca had never seen eye to eye, Shelby was desperate and fast running out of options. Maybe Ram6n’s daughter could shed some light on his death.

  “Here goes nothin’,” Shelby told herself as she parked her car and got out. Somewhere down the street a dog barked, and as she climbed the steps a cat shot out of nowhere and dashed across the porch. Raindrops peppered the roof.

  Shelby rapped on the door, and it opened almost immediately. Vianca stood on the other side of the screen. “Yes?” she asked, red lips pursed in irritation.

  “I’d like to talk to you. About Nevada.”

  “He was arrested. There is nothing more to say.”

  “There’s a helluva lot more to say,” Shelby argued as the shorter woman on the other side of the screen stood on her tiptoes to peer over Shelby’s shoulder. Vianca’s eyes slitted as her gaze followed a truck slowly driving past.

  “So you bring the devil with you,” she muttered unkindly. Shelby looked over one shoulder, and her blood turned to ice water. Ross McCallum’s old pickup pulled up to the curb.

  “Oh, God, no.”

  “Get inside.” Vianca threw open the door, and Shelby didn’t need any urging. She heard McCallum cut his truck’s engine.

  “Dios, ” Vianca said, locking the screen and the door. She whirled on Shelby, who stood in the middle of the living room. “What is this all about?” Vianca said, then sputtered a stream of angry Spanish. Vianca’s mother lay on a couch, an afghan spread over her frail legs.