by Warner, Kaki
Sancho’s breathing changed.
Brady looked up to see the dying man twitch, his seared muscles jerking and flexing. His moans echoed along the walls. “Ayú . . . da . . . me . . .”
Moving stiffly, Brady rose and crossed the cave. He stared down at the charred face, watched those blind eyes move toward him. Sancho said something but Brady couldn’t make it out. Trying not to breathe, he leaned closer.
“H-hel . . . ne,” Sancho rasped, with only his blistered tongue to form the words. Help me.
Brady straightened, repelled by the stink, the moans, the utter agony reflected in those sightless eyes. Walking to the far wall, he rested his palm against the cool sandstone and tried to shut his mind to the sound of that raspy voice. He didn’t want to feel sympathy for this pitiful wreck of a man. Vengeance was in his hands. He didn’t want to weaken.
“Shoot . . . ne . . .”
Brady squeezed his eyes shut as the past pressed against him, demanding its due. Vengeance or mercy? He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do anymore . . . what any of it meant or why it all rested on him now. He was so sick of the hate and killing, he felt like he was drowning in blood.
He wanted it over. He needed it to be over. Now.
“Dios . . .”
With grim determination, Brady drew the Colt and walked toward Sancho. Lifting the pistol, he cocked it and aimed at Sancho’s head. He took a deep breath. Silence thundered through his head. Too much silence. He lowered the gun.
Bending over Sancho, he searched for movement, some sign that he still lived. Nothing.
He straightened and slipped the gun back into the holster.
For a minute he stood there, unable to walk away, waiting for something—some sense of satisfaction, of triumph. But he felt nothing beyond a soul-deep weariness. The feud that had consumed him for most of his life was finally over. The enemy he had battled for two decades lay dead at his feet. He’d won. Shouldn’t he feel something more than this empty relief?
When no answers came, he picked up the lantern and left the cave.
He decided to leave Sancho where he was. At first he had thought to give the body to the sheriff, like he’d done with Alvarez. But at some point during those long hours while he waited for Sancho to die, Brady realized that, for better or worse, this broken man was as much a part of RosaRoja as he was. In his own twisted way, Sancho loved this land, too. Maybe it was weakness, or maybe he didn’t care anymore, but Brady decided to let him stay. He’d get some black powder or a few sticks of dynamite from one of the mines nearby, and seal Sancho in his cave forever. But for now, he stacked rocks in the tunnel opening to keep scavengers out and let it go at that.
It was long past dawn when he finally trudged down the slope to where his horse waited.
As he rode toward home, a spark of hope ignited in his weary mind, and with every step away from the cave it grew. Maybe without the feud hanging over his head, things would be different. Maybe he could build something worthwhile, find a better way to spend the years he had left. With Jessica beside him, anything was possible. She had a way of making him feel like he could do it all.
Riding down into the home valley, he noticed a pall of smoke hanging in the still air, turning the sun a deep orange in the morning sky. Despite the thickening smoke, he could still see the glow of the fire long before he reached the compound. And when he finally got close enough to see the extent of the destruction, he reined in, staring in shock.
The barn and paddocks were lost. The house was a sheet of crackling flames. Most of the outbuildings had been reduced to tangled piles of glowing timbers. The only things standing were a few of the more remote cabins and the loafing shed. It looked like the fires of hell.
He stared in disbelief, unable to get his mind around what his eyes were seeing. Gone. Everything. The losses were immeasurable, not just because Ru had died or because of all the structures that were lost. It was the loss of years—decades of backbreaking work—years he didn’t have anymore. He was thirty-three. Not in his lifetime could he make RosaRoja into even a shadow of what it once was.
Gone. All of it.
A sudden tightness gripped his chest. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Slumping over the saddle horn, he struggled to pull air into his aching lungs as his mind grappled with the terrible reality that faced him. He saw nothing ahead but endless toil and years of struggle.
Could he even survive a future like that? Probably.
Could Jessica? Probably not. And he couldn’t even ask her to try.
Sweet Jesus.
A terrible emptiness spread within him. He saw everything clearly now, all his failures, his sins—Sam, Jacob, Paco, and Sancho—all the bloodshed, the forgiveness withheld—all the mistakes he’d made as he’d blindly forged ahead on a path he’d never questioned.
This was his accounting, his payback for all the sins of the past.
He was doomed and damned.
But he wouldn’t bring Jessica down with him.
Suddenly dizzy, he gripped the pommel with both hands, fighting for balance as he realized the full extent of the debt he had to pay. More than the destruction of the ranch, more than the end of the dream, it was the loss of Jessica that would bring him to his knees.
With an anguished cry, Brady lifted his face to the bloodred sky. His day of reckoning had come.
Twenty-three
JACK MET HIM AS BRADY RODE UP. “IT’S OVER?”
“It’s over.” Brady reined in, even though what he wanted to do was ride on, find Jessica, try to salvage something from the ruin of his life. But he’d carried the weight of responsibility too long to shrug it off now. His brothers, all these people who were a part of RosaRoja, depended on him. This was their home, too, and their futures going up in smoke same as his.
Jack pulled off his hat and mopped his brow, leaving sooty smears across his face. “It’s bad, Brady. But unless the wind kicks up again, I think the worst is over.”
Brady studied the collection of furniture, clothing, and kitchen items piled in the yard. Beyond it, men leaned wearily on rakes and hoes and pitchforks, while others slapped at escaping sparks with wet rags and burlap sacks. “Anyone hurt?”
“Blisters here and there. A couple of the horses may have to be put down. Hank’s working on them now. It could be worse, I guess.”
Brady thought of Ru and Jessica and wondered how.
Jack settled the hat back on his head. “We salvaged what food we could from the house and larder and moved it to the loafing shed. Elena and the other women are there now, helping Sandoval put together some grub for the men.”
“Jessica and Ben?”
“Bedded down at Buck’s.” Stepping back so that Brady could move on, Jack added, “Iantha left clean clothes for you on the porch.”
Brady nodded and reined his horse toward the small cabin where Buck and Iantha lived. Despite how badly he wanted to reassure himself that Jessica was safe, a part of him didn’t want to see her. Now that he knew he had to cut her out of his life, he didn’t think he could stand the pain of being around her. When he thought about loving her last night and how it had felt to have her wrapped around him, her breathy voice whispering his name in his ear, that feeling of loss rose up so strong it almost choked him.
How could he convince her to walk away from this nightmare?
How would he go on when she did?
Moving with painful soreness, he dismounted and tied the bay to a post by the cabin’s front porch. He stripped beside the trough. After rinsing off as much of the dried blood as he could, and reopening the cuts in the process, he pulled on clean trousers from the pile Iantha had left on the porch, grabbed his clean shirt and bloody clothes, and went inside.
The house was quiet. He was both relieved and disappointed to see no sign of Jessica or Ben. But Doc was there, slouched at the kitchen table with Buck’s whiskey jug. His eyes widened when he saw the bloody cuts. “Saint’s preserve us, lad. What did the bastard use?
A pig sticker?”
“Something like that.” Brady dabbed at the blood with his dirty shirt, then gave up and tossed it aside. Slumping into the chair across from Doc, he motioned to the jug. “Pass it over.”
Doc did, then reached for his medicine satchel. “Take a healthy dose,” he advised. “You’ll be needing it, I’m thinking.”
Despite all the blood, the cuts weren’t as deep as they looked and required less than a couple of dozen stitches. The cuts on his wrists would be fine with Consuelo’s slippery elm salve, and the rawness in his throat should pass in a day or two unless it developed into a prolonged cough, which might indicate more damage to the lungs than Doc suspected. Although the headaches might linger awhile, the head wound was minor, and Doc said that despite all the bruising, he didn’t think anything was broken or cracked. All in all, Brady was lucky.
He didn’t feel lucky.
After Doc left, Brady pulled on the clean shirt and reached for the jug again. He took a deep swallow. Then another. It didn’t help. No new insights softened the bleakness of reality. Nothing changed what had happened or what it meant, and as the sun crawled across the smoky sky, he gave up trying.
Dropping his head onto his crossed arms, he closed his eyes and surrendered to the numbness of sleep.
IN THE SPARE BEDROOM DOWN THE HALL, JESSICA AWOKE with a lurch that brought her up on her elbows, heart pounding. Then she saw Adrian sleeping in his cradle by the dresser and relief sent her sagging back against the pillows. She resisted the impulse to rush over and pick him up, to reassure herself yet again that he was safe and unharmed. From the moment she had seen the house aflame until the moment Iantha had put him in her arms, Jessica had been almost paralyzed with fear. But it was over.
Adrian was safe, she was safe, Brady was safe.
Pushing back the quilt, she sat up. The room reeked of smoke. Hazy sunlight behind the lace curtain told her that it was well into the day, and even though she had lain down only a few hours ago, worry over Brady wouldn’t allow her to remain in bed.
Moving quietly so she didn’t wake Adrian, she washed and dressed as quickly as her bruised muscles would allow. She looked down at her bandaged feet and thought of Brady and his poor feet after hiking for help, and realized how far they had come since then. And yet, despite all the pain and heartache, they had found each other. And survived. What a gift that was.
Smiling, she rummaged through the pile of clothing stacked beside the bureau. Thankfully most of her personal belongings had been pulled from the house before the bedroom wing caught fire, so she had something clean to wear, even if it smelled of smoke. After plaiting her hair in a long thick braid, she tiptoed out, gently shut the door, and moved down the hall to the kitchen.
In the doorway she stopped, struck by the sight of Brady slumped at the table, his dark head resting on his folded arms.
He snored. The sound of it was so commonplace, so endearing, it brought tears to her eyes. For a long time she stood watching the rise and fall of his broad shoulders, the twitch of his big hands, the dark sweep of eyelashes against his sun-browned cheek. A few hours ago she had thought him dead, lost to her forever. Now he was snoring at the kitchen table. Alive.
“Thank you, God,” she whispered, grateful tears running in hot streaks down her cheeks.
His head jerked up, eyes wide and searching. When he saw her in the doorway, he sat back and rubbed a palm across his face. He gave her a sleepy smile that quickly faded when he saw her tears. “What’s wrong? Is Ben all right?”
“He’s fine.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“I’m happy.” She wiped tears from her cheeks and gave him a wobbly smile. “I thought you were dead. I thought I was dead. We’re not.” More tears threatened, but she blinked them away. “That makes me happy and sometimes I cry when I’m happy.”
“Well, don’t. You know I don’t like it.” He held out his hand. “Come here.”
She raised a brow. But despite the highhanded attitude and clipped words, there was something in his expression that compelled her, a vulnerability she had never seen in him before. He seemed so resigned, so weary.
“I just want to hold you, Jessica.”
She moved toward him. As soon as she came within reach, he slid his arms around her waist and pulled her closer until his cheek lay over her heart. The gesture was intimate and possessive.
“Jessica,” he said.
Just that. Nothing more.
But there was such emotion in the way he said it, it almost made her cry again.
Emboldened, she ran her fingers through the dark curls at the back of his neck and was rewarded by a slight lessening of the tension across his heavy shoulders. Closing her eyes, she surrendered to the scent of him, the warmth, the rightness of having his arms around her. It felt so good to be held again, to touch and be touched by this man. The joyful wonder of it was almost more than she could bear.
She felt a shudder go through him as she began to gently stroke the hard planes of his back, learning again the dip of his spine, the sharp ridges of his shoulder blades, the knotted muscles in between. A sense of possession moved through her, that feeling of connection she’d never known with anyone but him. She embraced it, craved it, needed it as much as she needed the next breath. Pressing her lips against the crown of his head, she said, “I love you, Brady.”
His grip tightened. But he didn’t speak.
She waited, confused by his silence. Growing alarmed but trying not to show it, she pulled away. “So, it’s over then? The feud?” She tried to keep her voice light despite the tightness in her throat. Something was different. She stepped back.
His arms fell to his lap. “It’s over. In all the ways that matter.”
Horrid images of Sancho lurching and screaming chased her to the cookstove. She fussed with a blackened coffeepot, checked the coals, wiped her hands on a towel hanging from a peg. “I didn’t mean to burn him,” she blurted out. “He came at me and the lantern was all I could find. I didn’t intend for him to die that way. But I’m not sorry he’s dead.”
“You shouldn’t be.”
She sensed him watching as she moved inanely around the room, touching this, straightening that, in futile attempts to mask the confusion in her mind. If not Sancho, then what? Something had changed. He was as distant as he had ever been, as if last night had never happened. She turned to face him. “Then what’s wrong, Brady?”
He sighed wearily. “Sit down. We need to talk.”
The way he said it reawakened all the doubts she thought she’d put behind her. Something had happened. He’d changed his mind. He didn’t want to marry her anymore. She tried to cover her anguish with a smile, but all she could think was Why? Why had she believed him—why had he changed—why was it so hard for her to be loved? Her pride in tatters, she glanced at the door, caught between the urge to flee and the need to stay.
“Please, Jessica.”
On wooden legs she walked to the table and sat. She had suffered betrayal before—Papa, George, Crawford—what man in her life had not hurt her or walked away from her? She had survived that. She would survive this, too. Hiking up her chin, she looked him in the eye.
“It won’t work, Jessica. I can’t see any way around it. It just won’t work.”
She noticed his voice sounded strained, and was glad he found this wretched conversation as difficult as she. “What won’t work?” She needed to hear him say it.
“This. Us.”
She thought she had prepared herself but she was wrong. Her body seemed to shrink into itself. Her throat felt so tight she could scarcely breathe. “I see,” she finally managed. “It was all a lie then.”
“No. Never. I—”
“You bloody bastard.” Somehow she found the strength to stand. But before she could move away, his hand closed over her wrist.
“Wait. Let me explain—”
“It’s not necessary.”
“Yeah, it is.”
/> “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Damnit, sit!”
She glared down at him, using anger to mask the hurt.
He glared back. Then he sighed and released her arm. “Damnit, sit . . . please.”
She sat. But only because her legs felt too weak to hold her. Clutching her trembling hands in her lap, she struggled to adopt an expression of bored interest. Apparently some pathetic part of her needed to hear what he had to say. She hoped she had the courage to stay and listen.
She waited, watched him struggle over the words, and realized again she wasn’t the only one suffering.
“My mother was a strong, capable woman,” he said. “She had to be to raise four sons alone while my father was off fighting in the war. But once we came out here, the heart went out of her.”
“My condolences.” She rose.
“I’m not finished.”
She sat back down.
He took a moment to regain his thoughts, then continued. “For years I told myself it was because she probably guessed Jacob had feelings for Maria. I realize now it was more than that. Life is hard out here, Jessica. More so for a woman.”
What tripe. “And it is your intent to save me from hardship? How gallant.” She would have laughed out loud if she hadn’t been on the verge of striking him. “However, it is not necessary. I can save myself.” And you taught me.
He seemed not to notice her acid tone. “I watched it suck the spirit out of my mother. I won’t watch it happen to you. I won’t let it happen to you.”
“You won’t let it?” A rush of fury propelled her from the chair. “Who gives you the right to decide what I can and cannot endure?” Before he could answer, she rushed on, her voice rising with every word. “Dear God, Brady, is anyone ever enough for you? Pure enough? Loyal enough? Strong enough? Your father, Jack, me. Are we all doomed to fall short in your eyes?”