by Laurie Paige
The forbidding scowl returned.
She wasn’t intimidated. “You must have, to want to marry her.”
“Maybe I wanted her for her money or property.”
Leanne shook her head. “You would only marry because of a great love.” She sighed and thought the woman who had let him go had been very foolish.
He parked the pickup near the stable and turned to her. “Your head is just full of romantic fantasies, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“Yes,” he contradicted. “No wonder you walked out on your bridegroom. No man can live up to a dream. Grow up, little girl. Life isn’t a fairy tale. Come on. We have work to do.”
When he got out of the truck, she trailed after him. “I know that. Do you think I should have gone through the ceremony even though I’d had doubts for some time? Rand and Bill thought I was just having bridal jitters. I don’t know. Marriage seems like a big step.”
Cade stopped with one foot on the porch. “It is. If you really were unsure, then you did the best thing. You would have both ended up miserable. If there were children involved by the time you called it quits, it would affect more than just two lives. Children need a stable home.”
She stayed close as he led the way into the house by a side door and into a bedroom. She stared around in surprise.
“Don’t look so shocked. I didn’t bring you here for a seduction,” he remarked dryly. “My office is through here.”
Recovering, she grinned and wrinkled her nose at him. “Oh, heck, just when I began to get my hopes up.”
“Trouble,” he muttered, flicking on the computer. “I knew it. You’re gonna be nothing but trouble.”
Lexine Baxter walked into the reception room and glanced around. She’d had to sweet talk the warden into letting her use a private meeting room instead of talking to her newly rediscovered daughter through a phone and inch-thick Plexiglas sheeting.
She quickly sized up the young woman who stood by the barred window looking ill at ease. She was pleased to see how pretty the girl was, even if she was rather thin.
Audra had platinum blond hair, styled in a short, blunt cut. Her makeup was severe in a dramatic way—eyes outlined in black, prominent cheekbones emphasized with a slash of blush, full lips colored in dark red. The effect was surprisingly attractive.
But, of course, she took after her mother. Lexine had kept up her appearance no matter how restrictive and boring prison life was. She didn’t plan on staying here forever.
“Audra,” she said with a catch in her voice. Tears, real ones, filled her eyes. This was her possible ticket out of this dump. She held her arms out. “To think we’re finally meeting. My own sweet baby—”
She broke off and dabbed at her eyes when her daughter didn’t rush to her. She would have to be careful and not spook the kid.
“I’m sorry. I thought I was prepared, but seeing you…” She wiped her eyes again and patted a chair at right angles to the small sofa. “Please, sit down and tell me all about your life. Were you happy growing up?”
For the next hour she listened as her daughter told of her adoptive parents. Since Andrew Westwood had been Lexine’s lover and was the real father of her twins, she knew all about Felicia and Andrew and the comfortable life Audra had shared with them. It was only after Andrew died that Felicia’s shyster lawyer had gone through Audra’s inheritance. Money that Lexine had been counting on.
None of them knew about Emma, though, the twin sister who was Lexine’s ace in the hole, so to speak. The girl was still her legal child. A couple named Stover had tried to adopt Emma, but Lexine hadn’t agreed. One never knew what the future would bring…and who would be needed.
“What about you?” Audra finally asked, winding down her boring tale. “Do you need anything?”
Lexine proceeded carefully. “Just seeing you is enough, knowing that you’re alive and well. I just wish I could be with you…outside.” Again she was pleased at the hitch in her voice.
Audra looked down, embarrassed.
Lexine laid a gentle hand on the girl’s arm. Audra tensed and shifted away. Lexine was unperturbed. The fact that Audra had contacted her after receiving Lexine’s pleading letter to hear from her daughter proved the younger woman’s interest. All Lexine had to do was reel the nervous girl in slowly and carefully. She began her planned recital of ill-use by the Kincaid family.
“It was those heinous Kincaids that did this to us. They have been a thorn in the side of the Baxter family for generations. I was forced to leave because of Jeremiah Kincaid, the lecherous old man. He…was always after me. If I’d stayed, I think he would have raped me.”
“Oh, no,” Audra whispered.
“Yes. My family had lost everything to the Kincaids. The ranch was gone, my parents, everything. I left before I was trapped. Everyone is afraid of the powerful Kincaids, you see. They have a hand in everything in the state.”
“They are influential.”
“I didn’t kill Jeremiah.” Lexine touched her daughter’s arm again. This time the girl didn’t pull away. Lexine patted her arm gently and removed her hand. “I did kill my former partner. He showed up at the wedding and threatened to tell Jeremiah and Dugin who I really was. I’d come back to Whitehorn as Mary Jo Plummer and taken a job as a children’s librarian. Jeremiah would never have let his only living son marry Lexine Baxter. He called me trash one time.” She broke off as if overcome with emotion.
“Why didn’t he and Dugin recognize you?” Audra asked.
Lexine sighed. “I’d had plastic surgery due to an accident.”
Actually she’d been beaten by the man she was with at the time, but there was no need to go into specific details.
“When the surgeon rebuilt my face, I looked different,” she continued. “No one in Whitehorn knew me when I returned.” She touched Audra’s arm again, then withdrew. “Your father was very kind to a frightened, lonely girl during those early days when I first went out on my own. That’s why you were conceived.”
“Oh. I’d wondered—”
Quickly, before they got sidetracked in ancient history, Lexine went on. “When my former partner showed up at the wedding, it was my worst nightmare come true. He threatened to expose my real identity to Dugin and his father. He said he would kill me if I didn’t give him money after the marriage. We struggled with a gun and he— It was an accident, I swear it. I only wanted him to go away.”
“Why would you marry Dugin when his father was still around?”
“I thought I’d be safe from Jeremiah.” Lexine lowered her voice. “I’ve never told anyone this, but I think Jeremiah arranged Dugin’s death in order to get to me. But there’s no way I can prove it.”
“Surely with lawyers and a review of the evidence—”
Lexine shook her head. “That costs money. They took everything away from me, Dugin’s legal wife, and gave it to one of Jeremiah’s bastards, Jenny McCallum.”
“I don’t have any money,” Audra said quickly.
Lexine studied her daughter. The girl was sympathetic. A little show of affection, and she could be easily manipulated. Lexine figured Felicia hadn’t been overly loving to her adopted child. And children always loved their mother. It was a bond she was depending on.
“There’s a sapphire mine,” she said slowly, as if just remembering it. “It’s on Baxter land. If we could find it, that would supply enough money for everything. I could be free again. We could be together and have a chance to get to know each other. There would be money for travel and clothes, a nice house, all the things I could never give you…and which you deserve.”
Audra’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s been so awful these last few years. Mother was always demanding, but she’s worse now. She thinks I should support her when she’s the one who lost all our money.”
“If we could find the sapphire mine, that would solve everything, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, but how can we? I mean, you’re…here, and I don’t know
where it is.”
“I don’t know, either, not exactly, but I have a pretty good idea. The old mining area isn’t that large. A smart person could find it if she searched in a pattern, making sure to cover it all. The state has these topography maps a person can order. I’ve studied them closely and could show you the areas to search.”
Lexine waited with enforced patience as her daughter thought it through.
“Do you think I could find it?” she finally asked.
“I think so. I’ll get the maps and show you how to search. Together, we could do it. Or maybe it sounds like too much work to you. Maybe you’re not interested in helping your real mother or recovering your fortune.”
“Oh, I am. I want to help. The Kincaids should be brought to justice so you can be free.”
“Oh, my darling girl,” Lexine said on a sob. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me. I didn’t dare dream you would help after I had to give you up. It tore my heart out…” She covered her face with her hands.
Audra moved over to the sofa. She tentatively hugged Lexine. “Don’t cry. It’ll work out. I promise.”
“Thank you, darling. I can’t tell you what this means to me.” Lexine unfastened a necklace hidden under her prison garb. “I don’t have much in this world, but this locket is a keepsake. From my mother…your grandmother. She was a wonderful, loving person. I want you to have it as a remembrance of your true heritage. The Baxters of Whitehorn were once as powerful as the Kincaids.”
Lexine put the necklace around Audra’s throat and accepted her thanks. Then she held the girl close while they both wept. Later she got permission to get the maps from her cell. Together she and her daughter planned the future, down to the tiniest detail. It was all going to be wonderful.
And revenge was going to be sweet.
Five
Leanne tracked the thunder with one part of her mind while she worked at the computer. She would have to turn the machine off if the storm moved into the valley.
Thunderstorms made her nervous for another reason. Her parents had died in a flash flood. Not far from their home, returning from a trip to town, her father had crossed a low spot in the road. The water hadn’t looked deep, but it had caused the car to stall. Before he could get the vehicle started again, a ten-foot wall of water had crashed down on the car, sending it tumbling like a log along the ravine.
A high school senior, she’d been devastated by the loss. Rand and Daisy had put their own grief aside and been there for her. So had Bill. It had been a time of closeness for the four of them.
With Rand back at the ranch in Whitehorn, Bill had taken over his role, checking on her at the community college where she’d honed her secretarial and computer skills before taking a full-time job.
A clap of thunder startled her out of the past and into the present. She saved the file and turned the computer off.
Going to the window, she watched the wind kick up dust devils along the gravel road. Huge thunderheads roiled dark and ominous over the Crazies to the west while smaller clouds, blown by the wind, scudded over the ranch.
The remuda stirred restlessly. An unusual number of horses were at the ranch’s main quarters due to the auction coming up at the end of the month. She’d seen the replies from other ranchers. They’d have a fair crowd for the sale.
In the three days she’d worked in the efficient office next to Cade’s bedroom, she’d learned a lot about the ranch.
Garrett Kincaid, Cade’s grandfather, seemed to like her. He didn’t question her presence, although his eyes seemed to find something amusing when he’d observed her and Cade at lunch yesterday.
Trent and Gina seemed nice, too, although she avoided them as much as possible. Being on the run, so to speak, made her leery of Gina, who was, after all, a private investigator. She feared the woman might feel compelled to report her to her brother.
Glancing at the calendar, she realized her respite was running out. She’d been at the ranch a week. Rand and Suzanne, along with the kids, were due home in another week.
One week. Then she would have to decide what to do. She couldn’t go back to her old job and she certainly wasn’t going to work with Bill at the insurance agency.
With her parents gone, her childhood home had ceased to be. She and Rand and Daisy had split what inheritance there was after the ranch was sold and the bills were paid.
It came to her that she really and truly belonged no place in the world.
Her dream of a ranch of her own had been foolish. It took a ton of money and a lot of luck. An iffy proposition in the best of times. Farmers and ranchers often lived during the worst of times.
Drought. Flood. Insects. Disease. Life could be one disaster after another. Even without land to care for, hers certainly seemed to fit the pattern.
She tried to smile, but couldn’t summon the effort. Going back to work, she began filing a stack of papers that Cade had sorted the afternoon before. She’d told him that ninety percent of all filed papers were never looked at again. He’d told her she could throw them away three years from now.
As if she’d be around.
The dark restlessness of the storm invaded her soul. She glanced out the window again. The nearest paddock was filled with horses to be sold. They milled in a circle along the fence line.
Another crack of thunder exploded directly over the house. Before she could blink, a bolt of lightning hit, formed a ball, and ran along the wires between the main house and the bunkhouse. Halfway, with a sound like a cannon exploding, it arced down to a hay rake left propped against the paddock fence.
To her amazement, the fence shimmered with a magical glow along one side before the light died out.
The horses trapped within the paddock screamed in terror. Two dropped to the ground. The rest fled, going right through the far fence, across the pasture where cattle huddled against the storm, and disappearing into the trees and rolling foothills of the open range where the ranch joined the reservation.
“The horses are out,” Leanne yelled, running down the hallway toward the family room where Garrett read and napped in the afternoons. Cade sometimes went there and chatted with the older man about the ranch plans.
Gina came out of the bedroom she shared with Trent. “What?”
“Lightning hit the paddock. The horses are out.”
“Can we round them up?”
Leanne shook her head. “They’ve lit out for the high ground. It’ll take a couple of days of hard work to get them back down.”
“What’s happened?” Garrett asked, coming into the hall.
Leanne explained. “I’m heading for the bunkhouse to see who’s available. And to find Cade.”
She rushed across the quadrangle. No one was in except Cookie. “Cade was just in for coffee. He’s working in the arena,” he told her.
She headed for the large building that looked like an airplane hangar. That was where the auction would take place. Provided they had any horses to sell. She saw him come out and go into the stable. She changed directions.
“The horses are out,” she called, entering the dim interior that smelled of horses and leather.
“I know,” he replied without looking up from saddling the Appaloosa.
“Are any of the men close enough to help?”
“No.”
“Which horse should I use?”
He looked at her. “You know how to handle a skittish herd?”
“Of course.” She looked at the stock horses in a couple of stalls. “The big gelding looks rested.”
“Pick a saddle,” Cade said, tacitly agreeing to let her help. “I’m heading out.”
He led the stallion outside. A second later she heard the hoof beats as the animal sped away toward the hills. She hurried to join him. They really needed three people to control a spooky herd.
She spotted Cade up ahead and rode to his left. “Up in the pine trees over this ridge,” she called to him. “I’ll take this side.”
He nodded and angled to the right as they went over the rise and into the dip where the trees grew thickly. The land rose sharply from that point.
She came across the first band of the missing one hundred horses as soon as she entered the trees. Using a rope, she started them moving back to the other side of the ridge where the pasture started.
Another rider joined her, riding point while she drove the group from the rear. They circled them up and left them in the pasture.
“Thanks, Mr. Kincaid,” she called.
“Garrett,” he corrected. His grin was cheerful. “Lead the way.”
She headed over the rise again. For the rest of the afternoon, the three of them herded groups of twos, threes, sometimes ten or twelve, horses to the pasture. The thunder growled, but the rain held off. They worked until nearly dark.
“Let’s head ’em in,” Cade called.
Again Garrett rode point while Cade took the right side and she took the left back position. They started the herd across the pasture toward the paddock.
Every once in a while a recalcitrant mare and her group tried to make a break for the hills again, but she quickly brought them back in line. An hour later they had half the horses back in the paddock. Garrett volunteered to take care of their mounts while she and Cade repaired the fence.
The rain came before they finished. Holding the barbed wire in place as he twisted the strands together and tightened them, she heard the hard patter before the first drops hit.
“Rain,” she said.
He gave a grunt of acknowledgment and continued.
The heavens opened up, and they were soon drenched. Neither had a coat. Luckily the rain didn’t combine with sleet and hail as it had last week. They finished up as the last of the twilight faded into total darkness.
“Go get a warm shower,” Cade advised.
“Right. You, too.”
“Yeah. Leanne?”
“Yes?” She waited, water running off her hat and down her back, her heart kicking into a fast trot.
“Thanks for your help.”
“It was fun.”