A Knight In Cowboy Boots

by Quint, Suzie

  “Why not?” She asked, her tone bitchy. “It’s his.”

  Zach reached across the bed and pulled the money out of Jesse’s hand. “Bills pick up all sorts of germs and things from people handling it.”

  Jesse’s lower lip protruded, but he just grabbed another stack. Zach started to reach for it, but Maddie’s glare stopped him.

  “And what do you mean: ‘it’s his’?”

  “Well, technically it’s mine. His mother named me beneficiary, so his father couldn’t get his hands on it, but it was always understood it was for him.”

  Zach’s eyes narrowed. “Beneficiary of what?”

  Maddie glared at him, challenging him to disbelieve her even as her throat threatened to close up with the emotions that came whenever she tried to talk about Laurel. “Her life insurance.”

  A little of the tension went out of Zach. “So his mother’s dead.”

  For a brief moment, Maddie thought she might cry. “Yes.”

  “And his father’s a jerk.”

  “And then some.”

  “He’s still Jesse’s father.”

  “I don’t care. He’s not getting Jesse.”

  “That ain’t right. If someone tried to keep me from—”

  “Not right?” Maddie screamed, suddenly furious. Deep inside she knew Zach wasn’t the real source of her anger, but he was there, telling her she was wrong, and she had nothing to lose from going ballistic on him. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about! Not right is that son of a bitch killing two people!” Hot tears of anger and grief suddenly overflowed. “Not right is him skating out of murder charges because his father pulled in every political favor in the known universe! Not right is Jesse growing up without his mother!”

  She couldn’t see the look on Zach’s face through the tears, but after a stunned pause, his blurred form moved and his arms folded around her. He murmured apologies and consolations into her hair.

  They came too late. Wound up in grief and fear tighter than she’d been since she’d left Wyoming, she hit his chest with her fist, but she didn’t try to pull away.

  *

  Zach held her tight against him. Her breaths came in noisy, staccato gasps between her sobs. She struck his chest with her fist about every third bawl. His chest vibrated with the force of the early blows, but they quickly lost vigor as her angry tears turned to heartbroken weeping. Slowly, he eased her onto the bed. Jesse crawled around her and tried to climb into her lap. She pulled him into their embrace.

  “Maddie, I’m sorry,” he said when at last she was quiet. “You read about things like this, but I never thought—I never imagined it would touch anyone I cared about.” But it had touched him through Vince’s death. Stuff like this was so common anymore that it didn’t even make the papers unless there was a local connection. “You’re right. I lost faith too easily.”

  “You need to let me go.” Maddie’s emotionless voice made him want to tighten his grip. Instead, he eased his hold on her.

  “No. I mean I have to go.”

  “Where?”

  Maddie pulled away. She took Jesse around to the crib. Leaving him standing all wobble-kneed inside it, holding onto the rail, she started packing the money back into the duffel.

  Zach stood, facing her across the bed, feeling as though he’d accomplished nothing. She was about to walk out of his life, and there was nothing he could do to stop her.

  “I have to go someplace where Jesse’s father can’t find us.”

  Zach’s heart bumped against his ribs. “Is he in Galveston? Jake said there was someone—”

  “He was checking into the hotel when we left. I don’t know what started him looking for us here, but he did. If we go back … ” She shook her head, “I can’t go back.”

  “You’ll come to the ranch with me,” Zach said.

  “I can’t.”

  Her refusal, without even considering it, caught Zach by the throat. “Why not?”

  “Because it’s too great a risk.”

  “Did I mention I have eight brothers? At least four of which are old enough and big enough to defend you.

  “I’m more worried about the danger I’d be to you.”

  “I’m willing to take the risk.”

  She stopped, a hand inside the duffel, to throw him a hard look. “You just don’t get it. Derek killed my sister—”

  Zach felt like he’d been hit with another shock wave. She’d mentioned that her sister had died, but he hadn’t had a chance to match up all the information he had yet.

  “—because she wouldn’t give him custody of his son. If I hadn’t been watching him that day while she painted her kitchen—”

  She bit her lower lip, plainly fighting more tears. Her voice was low when she continued, as though she could dismiss the tears if she didn’t speak too loudly. “My boyfriend—the guy I was living with—he was a good man. He went over to help Laurel.” She took a couple of slow, stabilizing breaths before continuing. “Derek killed him, too.”

  She started stuffing money into the bag again, her eyes on her hands. “He had to know I had Jesse, but I’d taken him shopping. That’s what saved me. By the time I got home, they’d arrested him.”

  “But they let him go?”

  “Oh, there was an inquest, and he was charged, but it never went to trial.” Her voice was sharply bitter and she paused for a couple of heartbeats, as though emotionally regrouping, then continued packing the money, her movements rougher.

  “Please don’t take this wrong, Maddie, but … are you sure they didn’t find some reason to exonerate him?”

  She kept shoving packets of money into the bag. “He admitted he did it. He claimed it was self defense. That my sister came at him with a kitchen knife. That she got stabbed in the struggle.”

  “And your boyfriend?”

  “He supposedly walked in, saw my sister on the floor, and went crazy.”

  “Could it have happened that way?”

  “You didn’t know them. Laurel would never have fought him; she was too scared of him. He hit her sometimes. And once he half drowned her when they went to the lake. That’s why they didn’t get married when she got pregnant. She wouldn’t leave him for her own sake, but Jesse—even before he was born …” Her voice broke and she bit her lip. After a deep breath, her voice stabilized. “She wasn’t going to let him hurt her baby.”

  “She sounds like a mamma bear.”

  “A what?” Her head came up and she looked at him for the first time since telling him her sister was murdered.

  “She could’ve pulled a knife on him.” Angry fires lit Maddie’s eyes and Zach rushed to complete his thought. “If she thought Jesse was in danger. Mamma bears can be ferocious when they’re defending their young.”

  “She had no reason to fight him.” Maddie’s voice left no room for argument. “Jesse was with me. His father couldn’t have taken him.”

  “Okay. I can buy that. What about your boyfriend?”

  “If he walked in at the wrong time, he would have reacted forcefully. He was protective of both of us. And he didn’t like Derek anyway. Thought he was unstable.”

  “I could see how it might be hard to prove their deaths were intentional though.” Could she see that? Zach wondered. Or was she so caught up in her anger and pain that she couldn’t accept that others might need more evidence.

  “Their murders,” Maddie corrected, her face a hard mask of anger and grief.

  “So when the charges were dropped, you took Jesse and ran.”

  “I already had everything planned except … I’d planned it for Laurel. I just—” Her face screwed up with pain as her voice broke. “—Never could get her to go.”

  There was a knock on the door. Probably Jake, coming to report that he couldn’t find her. But Maddie’s car was outside, Zach realized. Maddie dropped her face as she grabbed the clothes that had been on top before Zach dumped it all on the bed.

  When he opened the door, Zach was su
rprised to see his older brother. In the morning’s revelations, he hadn’t spared a solitary thought for anything but Maddie.

  Typical of Sol when he was obsessed, Zach’s brother didn’t even offer a greeting. “You gonna make an offer on that bull or what?”

  “When I get around to it,” Zach snarled. “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

  Sol’s eyes focused behind Zach. “Yeah, I see what you’re busy with. That can wait.”

  “As it happens, it can’t.”

  “Excuse me.” Maddie bumped Zach out of the doorway. The duffel’s strap was over her shoulder, Jesse in her arms.

  Sol’s eyes dropped to her. His body jerked and a look of shock passed over his face. “Maddie?” He shook his head as though trying to clear his vision. “It can’t be.”

  Maddie looked up, equally startled. After a moment’s hesitation, she whispered, “McKay?”

  Zach pulled Maddie back where he could see her expression. He looked from one to the other. “Y’all know each other?”

  “I met her in Wyoming when I went to get Vince’s stuff,” Sol said. “She was Vince’s girl.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Zach felt like the air had been knocked out of him. It was too many surprises, too many things to wrap his mind around. As if his attachment to Maddie hadn’t made it all personal enough, Sol’s words multiplied his confusion.

  Absurdly, standing there, holding Maddie’s arm to keep her from bolting, he felt like he’d been poaching on Vince’s territory. Guilt threatened to crush him.

  “You were Vince’s girl?” he asked.

  “McKay’s your brother? Her face reflected disbelief and shock. But you said you were from Jefferson. Vince was from Hero Creek.”

  “I told you Jefferson because most Texans don’t even know where to find Hero Creek on a map. I figured you could find Jefferson if you looked.”

  Sol stepped between them. “Let’s all back up a step and take it one thing at a time. What are you doing here, Maddie?”

  “She’s running,” Zach said grimly.

  “Is your name Maddie?” Sol asked Zach, echoing their mother’s exasperation when one of them answered a question not directed at them. Sol turned back to Maddie.

  “Zach’s right. Derek wants his son”—Maddie’s arms tightened around Jesse—”but I can’t let that happen.”

  “I thought he was going to prison.”

  “They couldn’t prosecute. The police conveniently lost the knife.”

  “They lost the knife? Christ!” Sol swore.

  “People in power take care of their own.” Maddie’s tone was bitter again.

  “Whoa. Wait a second,” Zach said. “Your name really is Maddie?”

  She stopped and stared at him over the top of Jesse’s head. “Of course it is. What else would it be?”

  “Susan M. Grey. That’s your name?”

  The color drained out of Maddie’s face.

  “Where’d you get that idea? Her name’s Wells,” Sol said.

  “That ain’t the name she’s been using.”

  “How did you know?” Maddie asked.

  “That it ain’t your name?” Zach said. “I looked at your job application. The social security number belongs to a dead girl from Rhode Island named Susan M. Grey.”

  “Claudia let you look at my application?”

  “She didn’t let me. It was on her desk. When she was out of her office, I made a copy.”

  “How dare you!” Maddie’s eyes narrowed.

  “Hey, I ain’t the one using a fake name. Don’t yell at me coz you got caught.”

  Maddie shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to need a new identity anyway.”

  “What? So you can keep on running the rest of your life?”

  “At least it gives me and Jesse a chance.” Maddie’s voice rose. “If Derek catches us, I won’t have any life left and Jesse will be raised by that monster!”

  “Dammit all to hell!” Sol yelled. “Both of you back off and slow down. Maddie, stop holding that poor child like one of us is fixing to take him away from you. You’re gonna squeeze the stuffin’s outta him.” Sol pushed them both back inside, then picked up one of the table’s chairs, setting it down firmly enough that the legs made a solid noise even on the carpet. “Come here and sit down,” he told Maddie.

  Maddie sat on the edge of the mattress instead, with Jesse in her arms. Sol pointed Zach into the other chair and sat on the one he still held onto.

  “Now you’re both gonna take turns telling me what the hell is going on. And you’re gonna be polite and not interrupt each other.”

  “Christ, you sound like Mamma,” Zach said.

  “It works for her. Don’t see no reason to reinvent the wheel.”

  Zach bit his tongue and listened as Maddie backtracked, telling Sol what had happened since she’d first met him in Wyoming after Vince’s death.

  Jake arrived in the middle of the retelling. Zach gave him his chair as Sol bluntly gave Jake a three-sentence recap. Zach leaned against the dresser, where he could watch both Maddie and his brothers. Jake shot a wary glance his way when Sol told him about Maddie’s connection to Vince, but Zach carefully kept his face expressionless.

  With Jake up-to-date, Maddie continued her tale. Stray pieces Zach hadn’t known came out in the telling, like how she’d picked up her new identity in Colorado and her aunt in Wyoming had warned her that Derek might be on her trail.

  Though Maddie didn’t say, Zach was willing to bet big money her aunt’s name was Prudence.

  “How did she know he’d traced you to Texas?” Sol asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s here.”

  “Maybe it don’t,” Sol said. “But I’d like to know.”

  “I don’t know how he figured it out. My aunt got a suspicious call from the Galveston area code. I don’t know how that’s connected to Derek, but he got a look at the caller ID and the next thing I know, he’s checking into the Gull.”

  Zach felt his face heat up. He didn’t want to think his call from the Gull had exposed Maddie, but the lump of lead in his gut put the bitter taste of guilt in his mouth.

  It don’t matter, he told himself. Not at this stage. Not compared to keeping Maddie safe and keeping her from disappearing out his life as suddenly as she’d come into it.

  The thought of not knowing where she was—how she was—if Derek had caught up with them or not—made him feel like someone had grabbed hold of his heart and was trying to squeeze it like it was a tube of toothpaste.

  Knowing she could walk out of his life with his child inside her and that he would never know—if he allowed himself to really consider that, he’d either be reduced to begging her to stay or to committing felony kidnapping.

  When Sol expressed his belief that Maddie should stay, Zach felt like he’d just had a life sentence commuted.

  Maddie, however, wasn’t so easily convinced. “Why do you want to get involved in this? It’s not your fight.”

  “Vince didn’t live at our house,” Sol said, “but he was family just the same. There ain’t no one I was closer to, so if you think for one second I’m going to let you walk outta this door into danger without someone covering your backside—if you think any one of us will—you’re just plain wrong.”

  “This isn’t about revenge, Sol. It’s about survival.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about, too. Your survival. You and Jesse. If Derek wants to get at either one of you, he’s going to have to go through the whole damned McKnight clan.”

  “It’s safer to run.”

  “You wanna run your whole life? Dragging Jesse along behind you? What kinda life is that? Is that what your sister would’ve wanted for him?”

  Even Zach thought it was a low blow, playing on the guilt any mother—even a pseudo-mother—had about not giving her child the best life possible.

  He was glad Sol was saving him from having to do it.

  “It’s not perfect,”
Maddie said, turning defensive, “but it’s the only option I’ve got.”

  “No, it ain’t.” Sol leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, giving Maddie intense eye-to-eye contact. “You can face him down. You can settle it. Now. Before you end up bitter coz you done wasted years of your life.”

  “At least, I’ll be alive to grow bitter. And Jesse won’t ever have to live with the man who killed his mother. I can’t fight Derek. He’s too ruthless. I can’t beat him.”

  “Ain’t you listening? You ain’t going to be doing this alone.”

  “That’s because I won’t be doing it at all. It’s too risky. If I lose, I lose everything.” Her voice broke on the last word.

  Sol measured her with his eyes. “You don’t trust us, do you?”

  They waited through several long breaths for Maddie to answer.

  “I trust your intentions are good. Beyond that, I don’t know you well enough to trust you.”

  “You knew Vince. You think if he’d a’known what he was walking into that day, it would of come down the way it did?”

  Maddie looked away. “No. He was a smart man. And I know he’d have found a way to protect us—all three of us. But you can’t be prepared . Not day after day, maybe month after month. If I stay, he’ll find me. Will you still be prepared if it takes six months? Or a year?”

  “We ain’t gonna wait six months. We know where to find him. You say he’s at Rachel’s hotel. Perfect place to issue an invite. But it ain’t gonna be engraved. If it’s done right, he won’t even recognize it for what it is.”

  She was losing ground, and from the scowl on her face, she wasn’t happy about it. Zach held his breath, waiting for his brother to deliver a coup de grâce. Sol didn’t let him down.

  “Jesse’s already lost his mamma,” he said softly. “The way you wanna play it, he ain’t never gonna have a secure home. Any time Derek gets close—any time you think he might be—you’re gonna have to tuck your tail ‘tween your legs and run. How many times will you have to uproot this little guy? Make him leave all his friends behind? Hell, you’ll have to get him a new name every time you move, just like you’re planning to do for yourself. I’m sure that ain’t what his mamma woulda wanted.”