Lady Sundown (#1 of the Danner Quartet)

by Nancy Bush

  “And Dr. Breverman,” he added wisely.

  “And Dr. Breverman.”

  “If Tremaine didn’t try to talk you into going home when you were in Katieville, why would he want to now?”

  “Oh, it’s too complicated to go into!” Lexie turned away from him, flustered. She walked to the window and peered out to the teeming street below. A handsome carriage was parked in front of the brownstone and the sudden resounding slam of the brass knocker against the front door made her jump in her skin. Tremaine! But he couldn’t be here already, could he?

  “Lexie.” Harrison’s hands dropped lightly onto her shoulders. “What’s going on with you and Tremaine?”

  “Tremaine — I — nothing!”

  “Are you in love with him?”

  “No!”

  “He’s in love with you.”

  Lexie had been about to launch into a harshly worded lecture about Harrison’s letting his imagination get the best of him, but the words died in her throat. Tears started her lashes because he was so wrong.

  “I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” Harrison reminded her. “You think I don’t know what’s going through his head? If I didn’t think he loved you, I’d knock his teeth down his throat.”

  “That’s not love you’ve seen,” Lexie choked out bitterly.

  “Lexie, it may be a surprise to you, but Tremaine’s not exactly hurting for women, if you get my meaning. If he was after a mistress, he’d take one. That’s not what he wants from you.”

  “Well, what does he want, then? My God, Harrison, he’s put me through hell these past months! One minute I feel like he adores me, the next he doesn’t want any part of me!”

  “That’s Pa’s fault,” he stated positively. “He didn’t want any of us letting it be known you weren’t his daughter. He sent me a letter to that effect last Christmas.”

  Last Christmas. The fog of misery that had clouded Lexie’s judgment lifted a little. Pa had asked her to keep her relationship with Tremaine a secret. She’d thought it had been Tremaine’s idea, but he’d said it had been Pa’s. “That wouldn’t stop Tremaine. He wouldn’t listen to Pa unless he had his own reasons. Especially not after we’d—”

  “After you’d…?” Harrison prompted gently when she cut herself off. He glanced down at her bowed head and sighed. “So the flesh is weak, eh?”

  “Oh, Harrison.” She thought of how she’d spent the last few days and made a pitiful sound. “Very weak.”

  “When Tremaine gets here I suggest you and he have a long serious talk. Pa will realize how unreasonable his edict was as soon as he understands how you and Tremaine feel about each other.”

  Lexie shook her head. He was simplifying things too much. “There’s a lot more to it than that. He’s never even said he loved me.”

  “There’s a lot more to loving than three little words.”

  “Three little words he knows I need to hear!” Lexie retorted. Bitterly, she closed her ears to Harrison’s well meant advice. No, what Tremaine felt for her was not love. If he loved her, he would have said as much when she revealed her own feelings.

  There was a knock on Harrison’s door. Lexie and Harrison exchanged looks and she anxiously grabbed his arm, certain that Tremaine had caught up with her. Her heart beat unevenly. Harrison gave her a reassuring wink and opened the door.

  A familiar gentleman stood on the landing, smiling blandly. “Mr. Danner. Miss Danner,” he greeted them.

  It was the man from the hospital, the same one Lexie had seen at Celeste’s party. She sidled closer to her brother. “I don’t know your name,” she answered coolly. “But we’ve met before — at Willamette Infirmary.”

  “Ah,” he said. “You remembered. Let me introduce myself. My name’s Victor Flynne.”

  Neither Lexie nor Harrison accepted his outstretched hand and, after several uneasy moments, he dropped his arm. Harrison glanced from the gentleman in the fine clothes to the suddenly icy woman beside him. He couldn’t decide what surprised him most: his unexpected visitor, or the rigidly polite stranger who looked so much like his wild, untamed sister.

  “What do you want?” Lexie demanded haughtily.

  “Well, now, I’m on a quest for a very important gentleman named Ramsey Gainsborough. He’s been looking for his daughter so I suggested we check with her brother in Denver. And here you are.”

  Lexie blinked in confusion. “Ramsey Gainsborough? I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve made a mistake. My father’s Joseph Danner.”

  Harrison growled, “Get out of here. We don’t know anything about anyone named Gainsborough.”

  “Ramsey Gainsborough was left for dead in his Kentucky plantation home, a victim of a blow from an iron poker — courtesy of his wife, Mrs. Eliza Smythe Gainsborough. But I assure you he is very much alive,” Flynn went on smoothly as he stepped past a white-faced Lexington Danner and settled himself on Harrison’s shabby couch, adjusting the crease of his slacks. “He’s staying in Rock Springs at this very moment with his wife’s family, and he’s very anxious to meet his daughter…”

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  Tremaine stared out the open window of the carriage at the sun-dappled Denver landscape through bitterly derisive eyes. What a fool he’d been to believe Lexie’s whispers of love. Women were all the same, he thought scathingly. Even Lexie. A man could never trust them to be honest. Like Eliza, Lexie was careful to hide her true feelings, showing only clever, tantalizing glimpses, like a magician twirling a cape. Now you see it, now you don’t…

  And he’d almost told her he loved her.

  “Can’t you go any faster?” he demanded of the driver, pounding his fist against the back of the carriage.

  The man didn’t acknowledge Tremaine’s request but the horse’s hoofbeats quickened.

  Tremaine was too angered by Lexie’s deception to recall the many things about her he admired. His nerves were raw and sensitive. Seeing her lying soft and sweet and innocent in a tangle of bedcovers, knowing she wanted him, knowing she loved him, had melted some of the ice surrounding his heart. He’d begun to doubt his own cynicism. There was such a thing as love, because it was tearing at his insides like a wild animal.

  And then he’d woken to find her gone, without so much as a fare-thee-well. She’d slipped away while he was dreaming of her. Tremaine snorted in disgust. His wounds were too raw and open for him to think rationally. All he wanted to do was wrap his hand around her lovely, white throat and strangle her.

  And make sure she didn’t return to Rock Springs.

  The carriage stopped and Tremaine climbed out, paid the driver, and walked to the front door with barely a glance at his surroundings. He was bent on retribution.

  There seemed no point in knocking when he wasn’t going to wait on the stoop anyway. He walked right into the house, saw the door with the gilded frosted glass that listed Breverman’s name and hours, and strode inside.

  There was no one in the waiting room. The door to surgery was similarly closed and Tremaine yanked it open. He found a gray-haired man with a pointed beard, his black bag in hand, just getting ready to leave.

  “Can I help you?” the man asked, scowling at Tremaine’s abrupt entry.

  “Where’s Harrison Danner?”

  “Who’s asking?”

  “My name’s Tremaine Danner. Harrison’s my brother.”

  Tremaine couldn’t have predicted the man’s reaction even if he tried. Breverman’s nostrils flared. He looked furious. “Your brother and sister were visited by a man named Flynne. Apparently, there are family problems. They’ve already gone to the train station.

  “Flynne! Good God. They’re not going to Rock Springs?”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Breverman, calming down a bit. “I don’t mind telling you Harrison’s left me in a bit of a lurch. I’ve got sick animals to tend to, Mr. Danner. Too many for one man. None of my other students are as naturally qualified as your brother to help divide the load, and I… Say! Where are you
going?”

  But Tremaine was already a memory. Before Breverman could get over his surprise, the eldest Danner brother was on the street, hailing another carriage.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The night was dark save for a fuzzy quarter moon. Clouds had rolled in ominously all afternoon and were slowly blanketing the moon’s feeble light. Jason Garrett stood at the juncture of his land and the Danners’, damning himself for being so citizen-minded. But because of the mysterious worries of the Rock Spring’s sheriff and that old fool Cullen, he’d offered to be on the lookout. There was trouble at the Danners. He didn’t want that trouble to spread to his place.

  The rattle of an approaching carriage caught his attention. He prudently stepped behind the shelter of one of the nearby towering firs.

  The carriage swept by in a thunder of sweating flanks, pounding hooves, and swirling dust. Jace hadn’t been able to see more than a glimpse of its passengers, but warning prickled the hairs on the back of his neck.

  He was in a quandary of indecision when he heard a new horse, approaching from behind him. Moments later Kelsey appeared astride her bay mare. Jace glowered. His sister was a worse hoyden than Lexington was.

  “What’s wrong?” Kelsey asked, sliding from her mount.

  “I’m not sure, but something’s going on at the Danners’. That Gainsborough fellow’s got new company.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Jace swore beneath his breath, disinterested in lifting a finger to help his neighbors. He would like nothing better than for misfortune to smite Tremaine Danner. But he had a reputation to maintain in Rock Springs, and if he let Cullen and the sheriff down, he would be hard-pressed to give an account of himself. “Guess I’d better warn the sheriff,” he muttered, walking in the direction of the clearing where his own mount was tethered.

  “I’ll ride to the Cullens’,” Kelsey said in sudden decision.

  “Not astride, you won’t. Go back to the house and slip a sidesaddle on. You’re a Garrett, remember.”

  The clear look from Kelsey’s brilliant eyes made Jace uncomfortable. Damn the wretch, was she was laughing at him? But then she was gone in a flash of steel-shod hooves and flowing magenta-tinged hair.

  With a sigh, Jace climbed on his horse and turned its head toward Rock Springs.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  The carriage rounded the last curve and Lexie, who had traveled home in a numbed state hovering somewhere between reality and a kind of twilit netherworld, drew in a sharp breath at the sight of her mother standing on the widow’s walk. Eliza’s folly, Pa fondly called it. Oh, Mother, Lexie thought painfully.

  Why hadn’t they told her the truth? When she thought of the dreadful secret her mother had been forced to hide, she felt sick inside. Sick and compassionate. Now she understood Eliza’s attitude. She’d been born to privilege, yet she thought she’d murdered her husband and left him for dead. Though Victor Flynne hadn’t said so, Lexie knew her mother would never have struck down her father unless she had a good reason.

  But her father was alive.

  A queasiness filled her stomach as the carriage pulled beneath the portico. Harrison touched Lexie’s hand and the driver of the carriage helped her out. They’d left Victor Flynne in Portland. Flynne had done his job and was no longer interested in seeing them home. “I’ll wait for my payment here,” he’d told them, then seen about hiring them the carriage for the long trip. The man was a dirty snake but Lexie and Harrison had been too upset to care.

  The front door flew open and Eliza came outside, her blond hair unwound and lying in long waves against her shoulders. Lexie had only seen her mother’s hair loose when she was getting ready for bed; her dishabille now said more about Eliza’s state of mind than any words could.

  “Lexington!” she cried in surprise and horror. She drew Lexie into the trembling comfort of her arms.

  “Gainsborough’s man, Victor Flynne, came to Denver,” Harrison said as his mother reached past Lexie to grab his hand. “He told us Gainsborough was here.”

  “So you know.” Eliza sounded tired and grief-stricken. Her voice was nearly inaudible when she added, “I wish I’d killed him.”

  Lexie was shaken by this side of her mother. Another time she might have been delighted at Eliza’s show of strength and pride. Tonight she just felt scared.

  They went inside the house. The door to the den was closed, but it suddenly swung inward and three strange man walked into the foyer. Lexie’s gaze fell on the elderly gentleman with the ivory-handled cane. Ramsey Gainsborough. My father, she thought dully.

  “Lexington?” he asked with extreme politeness that set Lexie’s nerves screaming. His face was a grotesque caricature. “How pleasant to finally meet you.”

  The cruel look he sent Eliza’s way brought Lexie out of her near trance. She had a sudden mental image of how the days since Gainsborough’s arrival had been spent: Gainsborough seizing every opportunity to inflict tiny wounds on his wife. His wife. Still his wife…

  He clasped Lexie’s cold hand within his. She felt nothing for this man. Nothing but anger. Lifting her proud chin, Lexie demanded, “What do you want?”

  Gainsborough’s brows arched. He’d never fancied having a daughter and when he’d heard about Lexie, he’d seen her only as a tool to achieve his own ends. Her defiance was unexpected. But now he saw a bit of himself in her — and more than a little of Eliza — and he saw his means for punishment and retribution.

  “Well, now, child. Ah’m your father.”

  “I’m not a child.”

  “Ah can see that,” he answered, amused. “You’re a young lady. One ah’ve never had the pleasure to know. Ah think it’s fair that ah get my turn.”

  “What you mean?” Eliza asked sharply.

  He turned to her, his smile unpleasant. “Now that ah’ve met my daughter, ah want my chance to get to know her. Ah want her to come back to Kentucky with me.”

  Lexie withdrew her hand as if his touch were poisonous. She felt Harrison stiffen beside her and was vaguely aware of Pa, Jesse, and Samuel, entering from the kitchen. But all she saw was this calculating man with the cruel eyes. “You may have sired me,” she said boldly. “But you are not my father!”

  “Your mother left me for dead. Ah intend to have satisfaction,” Gainsborough said flatly. “The members of this household have been trying to reason with me these last few days, but ah will have justice.” In his peripheral vision he saw the way Eliza’s fingers dug into her blond son’s arm and Gainsborough smiled to himself. “Ah could be persuaded to take you in exchange for her freedom, however.”

  “Don’t do it, Lexie,” Pa said, his voice taut.

  She glanced at him, saw the white bandage that covered his arm. “Pa?” she asked faintly, worriedly. Her gaze flew to Jesse, one side of whose face was a huge green and yellow bruise.

  “He has no scruples,” Eliza whispered, but her whisper was a harsh, resounding rasp. “Don’t trust him. Don’t leave with him. He only wants you in order to hurt me.”

  The two men behind Gainsborough shifted their weight, poised on the balls of their feet, watching the entire Danner family. It was a scene that had been enacted many times since their arrival. The Danners were inured to the threat. They each in turn begged Lexie not to listen to the ruthless man who was her father.

  But Lexie was no coward. “I’ll go with you,” she answered amidst a roar of rebellion from her brothers, father, and mother. The gunmen drew their weapons.

  “For God’s sake, Lex, wait until the sheriff gets here,” Harrison implored. “Gainsborough can’t make you leave!”

  “But he can prosecute our mother.” Lexie’s voice was devoid of emotion, her green eyes narrowed on Gainsborough, her mouth a terrible thin line. Drawing her shoulders back, she glowered at the hired thugs. “I’ll go with you to Kentucky, Mr. Gainsborough, if you promise to leave my family alone. I’ll even pretend to be your daughter. And I guarantee to make your life a living hell.”


  ¤ ¤ ¤

  The house was dark and silent as a tomb when Tremaine arrived. It was late. Well past midnight. A hot, whipping wind rattled the trees and moved the clouds rapidly across the sky.

  He slid from the saddle, looped Napoleon’s reins over a fence post, and walked stealthily across the dry field grass to the side of the house.

  He heard a soft sound in the bushes and drew Lexie’s pistol just as a shadow leaped forward, a rifle barring his path. “Who goes there?” The sheriff’s voice rasped in a whisper.

  Relief and alarm flooded over him in equal measure. Here was help, but the fact that the sheriff was at the farmhouse at all made his hair stand on end.

  “It’s Tremaine. What’s going on? Is Lexie here?”

  “Yeah, she’s here,” Jace Garrett’s voice sounded in disgust from the stand of fir near the corner of the house. “And this has been a fool’s errand if I’ve ever seen one.”

  “What are you doing here?” Tremaine demanded, his impotent fury finding a perfect target.

  “Keeping an eye on your woman,” Garrett sneered. “But it looks like a cozy little family reunion to me.”

  The sheriff brought Tremaine up to date on the atmosphere inside the house. “When Jace saw a strange carriage go by, he thought he’d better let me know. But it turned out to be your sister and brother. Cullen asked Jace to help keep an eye on the place,” he added as an afterthought.

  “Lexie’s not Dr. Danner’s sister,” Jace said in a suggestive tone that made Tremaine want to lunge for his throat. He had to control himself with an effort and remain civil. But he’d be damned if he’d be beholden to Jace Garrett for anything. If Jace were here, then it was because it suited his own purposes.

  “Cullen’s around the other side of the house, but nothing’s happening,” the sheriff went on. “Now that you’re here, I suppose we can leave.”