Branded

by Vivian Vaughan

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” he questioned softly. “With you. I could be talking to Drummond this very minute.”

  The truth tempered her anger. “Why aren’t you?” she asked without half-thinking.

  He settled closer. She felt him take his eyes off her face and look overhead. “I guess I just wanted to experience it one more time.”

  She was acutely aware of him, of his shallow breathing, of his scent, of his heat. She tried to fight the lethargic effect he had on her powers to reason. She should leave, return to the house. But he would only stop her again, she thought.

  “Experience what?” she asked, wishing she hadn’t, the minute the question left her lips.

  “Watching the stars come out with you.”

  His voice was low, seductive. It soaked into the aching core of her. She turned to the only defense she knew. Anger. “You had no right to follow me up here.”

  He laughed softly. “I could have found you with my eyes closed, Jace.”

  “Sure,” she scoffed.

  “I could. I knew where you’d be.”

  She refused to play his game. Of the two of them, she had been the bigger flirt. Well, now she would control herself. “That’s ridiculous. You just got to town.”

  “I knew you would be on one of these hills soaking up the starlight. I used to think you were a witch or something, the way you took to the night.”

  “Go to hell,” she whispered.

  He laughed softly again. “Same ol’ Jace. You always were more down-to-earth under a blanket of stars.”

  Suddenly she could sit beside him no longer. “You act like the last five years never happened.”

  He came to his feet the instant she jumped up. Grabbing her arms again, both of them this time, he turned her to face him with an angry twist.

  “I did not escape, damnit. I was set free.”

  She tossed her head, eyes closed. His nearness was more threatening than his actions.

  “Tell your lies to someone who cares.” She jerked to free her arms. “Turn me loose before I scream.”

  “Scream, then. But listen while you do. Two weeks ago I was dragged out of my cell in the middle of the night by a very large guard named Yancy, who, by the way, is the warden’s personal guard. I thought sure my time had come, and I was angry as hell.” Pausing, he dropped one of her arms and tipped her face to his.

  The shock of his touch on her bare skin jolted her. She opened her eyes. For an instant, she forgot she hated him, even why. Her heart beat to the rhythm of his soft, hypnotic voice.

  “I was mad because he woke me from a dream, Jace. A very special dream.” His throaty whisper sent shivers down her arms. She wanted to ask about the dream but stopped herself in time.

  “I was also a little scared,” he admitted ruefully. “Sometimes they come for the poor fellow in the middle of the night and he goes to the gallows shouting down the hall. Damned if I won’t remember those shouts for the rest of my life, curses or prayers. But this night Yancy ordered me not to make a sound. Like he wanted to slip me out of there or something. I fought him, best I could, but then…”

  His words drifted off. Silence hung between them. She waited, spellbound against her will.

  “Damned if he didn’t take me outside. Before I got my bearings, the door closed. At first,” he chuckled harshly. “At first I thought it was all a mistake. I mean, I thought the door had accidentally swung shut, closing me outside. I don’t mind telling you, it was a terrifying few minutes. I expected them to come out firing guns. Finally I hid in the brush, waiting. For all I knew they had set me up for the kill. But no one came. Then I was struck by this incredible fear that if I ran, if I turned my back to the wall, they would start firing at me.”

  Jacy listened, stunned, frightened for him, even now. “So, what did you do?”

  “I ran. After a while.” He stared at her in the moonlight. She watched him struggle with some inner demon, as if he didn’t want to reveal what was inside him. In the long run, he couldn’t keep the demons inside. She had forgotten how well she knew him. They had been through things like this before, when he told her about his parents, about his fear of turning out a drifter like his father. This was the same.

  “I tried to go to Mexico.”

  “Tried? It’s right there.”

  “Yes. Physically. Geographically. But I couldn’t do it. I told you once how I always run from things. Well, this time I couldn’t run.”

  She heard the anguish in his voice.

  “If they set you free, you could have gone anywhere. That’s not like running away. Exactly.” She wasn’t sure what it was like. She wasn’t even sure how much of this tale to believe. It was so far-fetched, she decided it could well be true.

  “Yancy’s last words stopped me. They were an explanation, of sorts. He said, ‘You know what you gotta do, boy. You’re the only chance he’s got on this earth.’”

  It took a minute for Trevor’s meaning to register. When it did, a flurry of new emotions suffused Jacy. Anger, fear, and a fierce desperation that clawed inside her.

  “I couldn’t run out on Hunter, Jace.”

  She clinched her teeth to keep them from chattering. “You already ran out on Hunter,” she hissed.

  “Hunter didn’t kill Ana,” he acknowledged. “But damnit, I didn’t, either. If it’s the last thing I ever do, I’ll prove that to you.”

  She turned away. “I’m not the one who matters. The judge and jury were the ones to convince.” Gripping her runaway emotions, she concentrated on his story. “What does it mean?”

  “For a few days before I was freed, rumor had it that we were scheduled to hang at the end of the term, meaning August.”

  “August? That’s only a month…” She felt so sick she thought she might actually retch.

  “Rumors abound in prison,” Trevor continued. “No one pays them much mind. Eventually, of course, they come true. In the last five years there must have been a dozen rumors that Hunter and I were to hang at one time or another. We never did.”

  Hearing him speak so calmly about the thing that had filled her with terror for five long years made it even more bloodcurdling. “This is different.”

  “I’d say so. Somebody set me free. It’s crazy, I know, but it sounds like I’m expected to save his life.”

  Stunned, Jacy gripped her arms, rubbed them absently to warm the numbing chill that had swept over her.

  “I didn’t kill Ana,” Trevor said again. “I don’t know who did, but your father knows something. He’s bound to. I don’t mean he’s hiding anything. But he’s bound to know something that would help, give some clue. I have to talk to him, Jace.”

  “No.” Like a parental instinct, protectiveness flashed through her despair.

  “I have to.”

  “He couldn’t help. He told everything he knew, and where did it get him? He lost his ranch, his son, everything he held dear. We were run out of Arizona, Trevor. That’s why we’re here. We would never have left home. They forced us out.”

  “Who?”

  “Everyone,” she cried, feeling the defeat of those days return with a rush of futility. “We were disgraced. We had no land, no friends, nothing. We had to leave.”

  “I understand the ranch went to pay for Hunter’s defense, but the rest of it, your friends, Drummond’s friends…Friends stick together, Jace.”

  She swung to meet his gaze. “Like you stuck with Hunter?”

  He almost hit her. She saw it in the clenched jaw, the narrowed eyes, felt it in the violent jerk of his body.

  “How did you find us?” she asked at length, more to diffuse the tension than anything else.

  “Mama Dee.”

  “Mama Dee?” The name was as soothing as chicken soup. The old Southern maid had raised Jacy and Hunter. She was the only mother Jacy had ever known. It broke Jacy’s heart when Mama Dee couldn’t come with them to El Paso. She had often thought if she could bury her face in Mama Dee’s plump bosom for five
minutes, she would be restored.

  “How was she?”

  “Worried about you,” he said softly. “I promised to find you and let her know. You ought to write her.”

  “I don’t know where she is. I thought she returned to Virginia.”

  He stared at her long and hard, with a strange expression, finally saying, “She’s Tom Guest’s housekeeper.”

  The claim almost knocked the breath out of Jacy. It took her a minute to realize he was serious. “Tom? Why, he’s Papa’s best friend.”

  “Or was.” Trevor sighed, but before she could ask what he meant, he changed the subject. “She came through for me. Found me clothing, boots, a horse, money, even let me stay in the old cabin.”

  The old cabin. What memories that place held. Jacy tried to dispel them. Trevor did it for her.

  “I have to talk to Drummond, Jace. Surely, you understand—”

  “No.”

  Trevor glared at her until she added, “It’s no use. Papa’s mind…well, he’s holding onto sanity by a thread. Seeing you would send him over the edge forever. I’m sure of it. I can’t allow you to see him.”

  “Not even to save Hunter’s life?”

  To save Hunter’s life? What wouldn’t she do to save Hunter’s life? “I will do whatever needs doing for Hunter. Papa must be left out of it.”

  “All right. For now I’ll agree. We’ll work together—”

  “Together? You and me?” Jacy’s anger flamed. “Never in this world! Never in your wildest dreams!”

  His laughter came quick and was harsh and cruel. “My wildest dreams?” Jerking her around, he lowered his face close to hers. “Wanta hear about my wildest dreams, Jace? I bet you’d like ’em. After five years in a lonely cell, they’re about the sexiest dreams you could ever imagine. And you’re the star—”

  She slapped him. The sound mingled with the thrashing of her heart and echoed through the silence between them. Somewhere a dog barked. Somewhere a door slammed. But the sound of her slap seemed to go on forever. The leering grin left his face. His eyes bore into hers. He dipped his head.

  She held her breath. The tip of his nose touched hers. The contact sent sensations racing down her spine. His lips touched hers, lightly, as though only the outer layer of his skin touched only the outer layer of her skin. He might as well have struck a match inside her. For long tense moments they stood, lips touching, but barely.

  “I’m going to save Hunter or die trying, with or without your help, Jace.” His tone was quiet, harsh, and sincere. “Then I’ll get the hell out of your life, like you want.” While he spoke his lips worked against hers in the faintest of nibbles. His harshness gave way to mockery. “That is what you want, isn’t it, Jace?”

  She stood entranced, her body and mind waiting, poised on the edge of a precipice, for the exhilaration, for the longed-for sensation, for the sensual magic of Trevor’s kiss.

  But it didn’t come.

  It took her a minute longer to realize he never intended to kiss her, only to humiliate her. It was a game they played. She slapped him, he retaliated by humiliating her. She flung herself away. “That is exactly what I want. The sooner the better.”

  “Then help me save Hunter.” His tone had returned to a clipped demand. “Tell me what you know.”

  “I know nothing. How could I? If I knew how to save him, I would have done it long ago.”

  “Granted. What about Drummond?”

  “I told you, he is incapable of discussing anything.”

  “He never mentions the murder? Or the trial?”

  “No. I don’t find that surprising, considering that he lost his mistress of twenty years and his only son in the same incident.”

  “Why did he lose his mind?”

  “Spare me.”

  “I’m serious.” He sounded it. “Sit back down, Jace. Let’s talk about this. For Hunter’s sake.”

  He sat, offered her a hand, which she refused. But he was right, they had to discuss this. For five years things had needed discussing, but there hadn’t been anyone to discuss them with. Determined to keep a grip on her senses, she sat, tucked her skirts around her ankles. “Okay, talk.”

  He sighed beside her. “For starters, the Drummond Kimble I knew would still be fighting. Something happened, Jace. What?”

  “You don’t need to make it sound so dramatic.” She looked at the stars and felt him beside her. “The evidence might have been circumstantial, but it convinced the jury. There was no evidence to dispute the fact that…” She paused to draw a steadying breath. “…that you and Hunter were carrying on with Ana Bowdrie.” She took a deep shuddering breath. “My father’s mistress.”

  “Jace.”

  At his softened tone, she jerked away.

  “Those letters were forged, Jace.”

  “The jury didn’t think so.”

  “Why in hell didn’t Drummond try to find the author?”

  “He recognized her handwriting.”

  “It was forged, I tell you. I received one letter from Ana Bowdrie. I don’t know how the others got in my cabin. I don’t know what Hunter received. I don’t know anything, except that he didn’t kill her.”

  “You’ve had five years locked up together,” she retorted. “Surely you could have figured things out by now.”

  “We haven’t been within spitting distance since we were arrested.”

  That stunned her. “I knew they kept you separated for the trial, but…Why…?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. Someone is afraid that together we might come up with the answer. For instance, who the real murderer is.”

  “Oh, dear, Lord.”

  “Yes. Now will you let me talk to Drummond?” When she still refused, he added, “Then tell me everything he ever said about the case.”

  “You don’t ask much.”

  “Your brother’s life is worth it. To me.”

  How many times had she heard him say Hunter was the best friend he ever had? His friendship with Hunter meant more to him than the relationship between the two of them. The ill-advised, ill-fated relationship she wished to God she had never pursued, for she, after all, had been the pursuer.

  And look where it got her—sitting on a hillside beneath a heaven full of stars, beside a man she could love, if she didn’t hate him so fiercely.

  “He does ramble sometimes,” she admitted at length.

  Trevor waited, silent.

  “It’s really nothing. He believes Hunter will never hang.”

  “Hunter was convicted to hang. Why would Drummond think the sentence wouldn’t be carried out?”

  “Maybe it’s easier, fooling himself.” Suddenly against her will to do so, she began to recall things she hadn’t thought of in a long time; things she was uncomfortable discussing with Trevor. Things she wanted to forget.

  As always, he had an uncanny sense of what she was thinking. “Damnit, Jace, it’s Hunter’s life. Give.”

  “I don’t know anything, not facts. I have no idea what Papa based that claim on. He never said. It seems like…well, years ago, I seem to recall thinking—feeling—that he meant a bargain had been struck.”

  “A bargain?”

  “You know. Between lawyers or something. A deal.”

  “A deal means he gave something in return.”

  She shrugged.

  “You mean,” he asked carefully, “that Drummond was able to strike a deal to save Hunter from hanging…” He paused, expelled a heavy breath. “…by letting them convict me of a crime he knew I didn’t commit?”

  “He didn’t know you didn’t kill her. How could he have known such a thing?”

  “I don’t know, Jace. You tell me. You’re the Miss Fancy Pants whose Big Papa sent her brother to prison for life by bargaining away the life of her sweetheart.”

  She felt like someone had poured kerosene over her body and struck a match to it. The word sweetheart hung in the fervid air between them waiting to be denied. But she couldn’t den
y it, and in that moment, she knew he couldn’t either. Dear God, what kind of unholy mess had they stumbled into?

  “Don’t ever say things like that about my father again,” she said quietly. Inside she burned. She had to get away.

  Standing again, she smoothed her ragged skirt and looked down the hill to the hovel in which she lived, she, whom he called Fancy Pants because her wardrobe of doeskin trousers rivaled the wardrobe for a stage show. “If my father bargained anything, it was his life. Everything he was, everything he had, everything he stood for is gone. He is a shell of a human being. I will not hear him belittled or ridiculed or blamed. He loved Ana Bowdrie. He loves Hunter.”

  She glared at Trevor. “If it takes working with you to save Hunter, I’ll do it. Then, yes, I want you out of my life. I don’t want to ever see you again. I don’t care if they arrest you and throw you back in Yuma Prison and hang you from the gallows. The sooner you die, the sooner you can rot in hell.”

  That said, she picked up her faded skirts and made her way down the rocky hill, head held high, shoulders straight. With her back to him, Trevor could not see the tears that streamed down her face.

  Four

  “He’s a dangerous man, Miss Kimble.” Wes Hardin eyed Jacy with that harsh, penetrating look that must have caused many a young gunfighter to redefine the meaning of courage. “My advice to you is ride clear of him.”

  Morning had found Jacy sitting uneasily in a cracked leather chair in the law office of one John Wesley Hardin, Esquire. He listened patiently, if a bit groggily, to her account of John Selman’s attempt to arrest Tía Bella, then agreed to meet with the aggrieved parties in Selman’s office at ten o’clock and dispatch the matter forthwith.

  When Jacy asked if Hardin had heard from his inquiries to Arizona, he astonished her by turning the conversation to Trevor. Dismayed, she clasped her hands in the folds of her skirt and wondered how much he knew about her relationship with Trevor, how he had learned what he knew, and more to the point, what business it was of his.

  “Dangerous, Mr. Hardin?” She inhaled a breath of stale, smoky air. “I understand you are providing him lodging.”

  Hardin rose from behind his scarred oaken desk and paced to the window. It was a small room on the second floor of the Wells Fargo Building with a high pressed-tin ceiling and tall windows that looked out over El Paso Street.