She reined her horse around and stared at him with nothing short of disgust. “What if I don’t want to sell the Circle 46?”
Damn, why couldn’t she just make up her mind? Why did she have to dither over everything?
“You telling me you’ve grown attached to it more than you have the JDB?” he asked.
“Of course not. But I have the horses here.”
“Drive them back to the JDB. Hire a damned good wrangler when you do.”
“I don’t know.” She reined her mare around and started back down the road at a good clip.
He bit off a couple of ripe curses and followed. “It’s a damned good deal, Daisy.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“You do that.” And he aimed to do all he could in the meantime to persuade her to sell to him.
Chapter 11
Trey had always felt responsible for Daisy, but after sending off that letter to Dade at the Crown Seven, he was more duty bound than ever to watch over her. Of course that was like watching the horse ride off after closing the barn door, but hindsight was a damned fine thing.
What had happened between him and Daisy couldn’t be undone. And dammit all he didn’t regret it either.
But he wasn’t going to repeat past mistakes. That very first kiss he’d stolen from her was a fool’s move, for once he’d tasted her desire, her hunger, there was no holding him back.
If she would’ve just slapped him for trying. If she’d done anything but bow into him, fitting that sweet little body of hers to his, like she was made just for him.
He scrubbed a hand over his face and took a good, long look at reality. His dalliance with Daisy was in the past, a part of his life that he’d tuck away to remember. Same as those years growing up on the Crown Seven under Kirby’s guidance, being the youngest brother to Dade and Reid.
He’d had his rows with both brothers from time to time. But he’d trusted Reid and Dade with his deepest secrets. His worst fears. His life.
Reid had betrayed him and Dade in the worst possible way, using their trust to finagle them out of their shares of the ranch. Hell, Reid had come mighty close to getting him and Dade hanged when he’d sided with Kirby’s rotten cousin, who accused him and Dade of rustling their own cattle.
Lesson learned.
Trey and Dade had gotten away with the shirts on their backs and their lives. Reid got his name cleared, and ended up with the ranch and the cattle. Or so Reid had thought.
Dade and Trey had still had one more shot at claiming their shares. Last fall Trey had aimed to head up to the Crown Seven and do just that, plus finally have it out with Reid for betraying him and Dade.
But Ned Durant, either by Barton’s order or not, had other ideas. Instead of Trey getting what was due him, Durant had dragged him into the desert and left him for dead.
He shook his head, thinking it ironic that he’d lost his second chance to claim his stake in the Crown Seven. That Reid won it anyway by default, or hopefully was forced to share it with Dade.
Yep, he couldn’t change the past. But he could hold up his promise to the closest thing he’d had to a family.
Which is why he’d written a short letter to his elder brother—the thing he’d vowed never to do after Reid had betrayed him and Dade. He wasn’t ready to bury the hatchet, but he had to make sure that Dade knew he’d found Daisy.
In the event he wasn’t at the ranch, Trey could only hope that Reid knew where Dade was at and would contact him. At the least forward on the letter.
And if Reid had no idea where Dade had gone?
Nothing Trey could do about that. Trey had found Daisy and done his best to notify her brother, just like the three of them vowed to do nigh on twenty years ago.
He’d done a lot of things wrong since then, but unlike Reid, he wasn’t one to go back on his word. And hell, didn’t this qualify as him squaring things with his foster brothers?
Hell if he knew.
Trey was on his way to the house when he spied Cameron Ellsworth riding toward him, his back straight and his face giving away nothing that was on his mind. Having the lawman around so much made him nervous.
Trey braced a shoulder against the barn and waited for the lawman to rein up. “You coming by on business or is it a social call?”
“Business.” The ranger shifted in the saddle and eyed him like one would a rattler. “I came by earlier but Feth told me you were in San Angelo.”
He inclined his chin. “Spent the better part of the day there.”
The ranger nodded. “Is there anybody who can vouch for that?”
It’d been years since a lawman had questioned his whereabouts on a given day, and the fact that he might need a witness to being where he said he was got his hackles up. But he bit back the smart-assed remark about it being none of the man’s business and nodded.
“The hands here, and a few folks in San Angelo,” he said. “Daisy went with me as well.”
“I’d like to talk with her,” the ranger said.
That was to be expected too, but he hated that his word was doubted, hated that his senses told him that whatever brought the ranger out here wasn’t good news. “Mind telling me what’s going on?”
The ranger shifted in the saddle, drawing the moment and Trey’s patience to the breaking point. “There’s been trouble at the JDB.”
Damn! “Such as?”
“It burned down last night.”
Trey let all the ranger said sink in. Trouble at the ranch. Fire. Trey would bet the ranger was thinking this was intentional.
“You see it?”
The ranger dipped his chin. “Yep. Saw the smoke as I was coming back from El Paso.”
That took Trey’s mind off the fire. “You find what you were looking for there?”
“Yep. Folks remembered you. Said you were in mighty bad shape when you was brought in.”
“Yet you still aren’t convinced I’m innocent.”
“My job is to get to the truth, no matter what. Like that fire. Reminded me of the days when the Comanche burned out the rancheros.”
Trey had heard plenty of those bloody tales before, and thanked God he lived in more civilized times. Then he nearly laughed at that thought.
Leaving a newborn baby on a doorstep without any notion of his kith or kin wasn’t civilized. Neither was dragging a man near to death behind a horse. Or burning out a ranch.
“Any idea who did it?” Trey asked, having a damned good idea who’d stoop to such a lowdown stunt.
“Could’ve been anyone.”
True. But he’d bet Ned Durant had something to do with this. If he was lucky, he might just find proof of it.
“You’d best come on in the house and tell Daisy.”
“What’s wrong?” Daisy asked the ranger, showing amazing perception of trouble.
Trey stood back while Ellsworth told her the same story he’d told him a moment ago. Shock flickered in her eyes, then sadness rolled in like a dank fog, making her look so forlorn he had to stop himself from going to her and taking her in his arms.
That was always the problem with him and Daisy. She drew out that protective bent in him. Drew out other feelings he didn’t care to look at either, for they were ones he’d learned long ago not to trust.
She dropped into a chair and swallowed hard. “Is it all gone?”
“Afraid so,” Ellsworth said. “Barns and bunkhouse burned right to the ground. House is badly damaged and will likely cave in with the first strong wind we get.”
She pressed a shaky hand to her forehead. “Was there a heat storm? Is that what started it?”
The same thought that had first hit Trey. As dry as it was down there, it wouldn’t have taken much to start a blaze. One heat lightning strike could set the whole thing on fire. So could an untended campfire.
“I’d bet my star it wasn’t any accident.” The lawman shifted his stance and cast Trey a cool look before turning back to Daisy. “Where was you yesterday?”
“In San Angelo,” she said without hesitation, and Trey was sure she didn’t grasp what the lawman was trying to prove.
“Why?”
That brought her gaze up to the lawman’s. If the frown pulling at her brow didn’t prove she knew something was wrong, the stiffening of her spine did.
“I’ll ask you the same thing,” she said. “Why do you need to know that?”
Trey bit back a smile when the lawman braced both hands on his hips and stared at Daisy, likely stunned that she wasn’t as meek as he’d thought.
“Just doing my job, ma’am,” Ellsworth said. “Somebody burned the JDB to the ground, a ranch that was seeing mighty hard times. You and March were gone all day yesterday. I need to know if either of you had a hand in that fire.”
She sat back and gripped the edge of the tabletop, keeping her eyes on the lawman instead of Trey. “Fair enough. Trey had business in San Angelo, and I needed to visit Ramona and Fernando.”
“You and March together the whole time?” he asked.
This time she glanced at Trey, and worry flickered in her eyes. “No. There was about an hour or so that we were apart.”
But even if they’d been separated for two hours, Trey would’ve killed his horse riding from San Angelo to the JDB and back in that short length of time.
“You’re welcome to visit Ramona and Fernando and make sure I’m telling you the truth,” she said.
The lawman actually let out a low chuckle. “Like I said, I’m just doing my job.”
“I trust that means you’re looking for the man who could have done such a thing,” she said.
“That I am. If nobody else has trouble, I’m inclined to think this was a personal vendetta.”
“Ned Durant,” she said.
“I’ve got men on the lookout for him,” the lawman said. “Best be on my way now. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news and all.”
“Thank you for riding out to tell me,” Daisy said.
But she wasn’t looking at the lawman as he left. Nope, Trey could see that her courage had been sapped from her. She stared at her hands, shoulders bowing in, head down. Defeat.
It was mighty clear she was a blink away from bawling her eyes out. That was the time he’d always vamoose and let a woman to her tears. But this wasn’t just any woman.
This was Daisy.
Possibly Dade’s sister.
She was Jared Barton’s little princess daughter and the woman Trey had lost his head to. Nothing more.
She was simply a driving desire beyond anything he’d known in his life.
Now he worked for her. Plain and simple.
So why did this feel so damned complicated? Why did knowing that she was close to tears have him squirming between hightailing it and taking her in his arms?
Dammit, he wasn’t going to soften toward her again. They’d made their mistake. Time to move on.
Or try to. This was surely changing his plans to buy the Circle 46, for Daisy wouldn’t be going back to the JDB when the drought broke. Hell, she might not return at all. She might hole up here at the place he’d had his eye on.
All because somebody burned her out just for the hell of it. Or for revenge. Didn’t matter which. The end results were the same.
Except for him.
“I have to go there,” she said, seeming to pull her courage up again before his eyes.
“Why?” Trey asked.
She gave him a look that said he was dense as an oak tree. “Everything I owned was left in the house. I need to see if I can salvage anything before somebody helps himself to it.”
“I can do that for you,” Trey said.
“Your help is welcome, but I’m going and don’t you dare try to talk me out of it.”
He brought up his hands, palms facing her, certain the woman was loco. Certain he was too for wanting to applaud her grit.
But reality was a bitch neither of them could avoid. He’d be a bigger fool if he didn’t point the obvious out to her.
“You’ll be safer here at the Circle 46. If this was done to even a score, there’s no telling what else he’ll try doing if you go there.”
“The same could be said if I stay here,” she said. “With you gone, anybody could get into the house.”
That thought had his blood boiling. He’d kill anyone who dared harm her. Not that he expected anyone would. If Durant was responsible for torching the JDB, he’d be satisfied with the end result. He would’ve gotten his due just knowing the trouble he’d put Daisy to in returning there.
No, Trey’s reasons for keeping her here were selfish. How damned safe was she going to be trailing down there with him? They’d be alone with a passel of memories and desire raging between them.
“The house is gone, Daisy. You’ll have to camp out in the open.” With him.
“I’ve done that before.”
That surprised him. “When?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it and frowned. “I’m not sure, but I was very little. I remember sleeping on the ground, huddled in a blanket, yet being so cold I couldn’t stop shaking.”
That surely wasn’t a memory of her time as Barton’s daughter. He never would’ve put his child out like that.
But he recalled Dade telling him about when his pa took him and Daisy to the orphanage, how cold it’d been. How she’d cried silent tears long into the night. Was she starting to remember her past before she’d become Daisy Barton?
“I wrote to Dade,” he said. “I reckon he’ll head here as soon as he knows you’re here.”
“And if he’s not my brother?”
“Then he’ll be disappointed.” And Trey would escape being the groom at a shotgun wedding.
She got to her feet and smoothed her hands down her skirt. “When do we leave for the JDB?”
He huffed out a breath. “Bright and early tomorrow morning.”
He damned sure didn’t want to get there and have to scout out a place to camp on the ranch right away. Didn’t want to think of spending a night alone with her.
But that would likely be the one thing that stuck in his mind on that hard ride down to the JDB.
Daisy had defied him, and that should’ve pissed him off. He should find that bullheaded defiance so revolting that it’d kill off his desire for her.
But it hadn’t.
Nope, seeing this side of her, this determination and courage, just made him want her more. For he could see she was more than a match for him. He could see that Daisy knew how to give as well as she got.
Problem was he didn’t have a damned thing to give a woman like her but a good roll in the hay and a vague promise that he’d amount to something. It wasn’t enough.
Not for her.
And it sure as hell wasn’t enough for him anymore.
Daisy’s heart ached as she stared at the charred remains of the JDB ranch house. She’d seen the damage done to ranches before due to cyclones and fire, but the JDB had always been spared.
Not this time. Like the ranger had said, very little remained of the house beyond a shell, which was more than could be said about the outbuildings.
If not for part of the corral remaining, she’d be hard pressed to pinpoint where the barn had stood. Fire must have started there. Burned outward. Burned fast.
Even a day and a half after the fire, the stench of scorched wood filled the air to burn her nose and make her eyes water. Made her mare skittish as well, forcing her to hold a shorter rein.
A gust of dry wind stirred the ashes and blew the charred odor right in her face. Her mare whickered and sidestepped.
Daisy automatically stroked the horse’s neck, feeling the animal’s restive quiver through her gloves, feeling a similar tremor stir deep inside her. Gone. All gone.
“Can’t be anything inside that didn’t get burned to a crisp,” Trey said, leaning forward in his saddle, looking and sounding solemn.
“Probably so.”
Pictures, letters, clothes. Memories that she ba
rely could hold in mind were now lost forever.
Inside she was bawling over the loss, but outwardly she refused to shed a tear. Crying don’t solve nothing, girl.
She shook her head, unsure who to attribute that saying to. Unsure of everything now that the only home she’d known had been destroyed. She’d lost so much. How much more could she stand?
Trey shifted in the saddle, the creak of leather loud in the eerie silence that roared between them. “We could leave now and get back to the Circle—”
“You’re not rushing me off.”
She dismounted and gave her riding skirt a shake to rid it of trail dust. The fine gray powder fell onto the charred remains of grass that crunched underfoot.
She ground reined the mare and started toward the house. A muffled curse sounded behind her, but she didn’t turn around. Didn’t stop. Didn’t even slow.
Before she got halfway to the black arch that had been the front door, a tall shadow fell into step beside her. The briefest smile pulled at her mouth, and a sense of relief settled over her that he wasn’t intent on trying to change her mind anymore.
Still, she paused a heartbeat when she reached the front step and thought back to how inviting it had always looked.
“I always admired that rose of yours,” he said, surprising her with that bit of news.
A yellow rose that had always made her smile. That was supposed to bring good luck. That she had tended with loving care.
“Daddy said Mother had that yellow rose planted the day we moved in here,” she said.
There was nothing left of it now but black brittle canes. So much for good luck.
She looked up at him, and her heart seized up again. He’d thumbed back his hat to let the full sun fall over the chiseled lines of his face.
He didn’t look quite as pale as he had a few days ago, but his skin still wasn’t as deeply tanned as before. Not as full either.
Trey was leaner all over now. Not rangy so much as having that on the prowl hungry look. What would sate his appetite? What would erase the hard lines around his eyes and mouth? What would lighten his heart, for the man was surely carrying around some heavy woes?
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