Branded

by Vivian Vaughan

  Todd beamed. “Would you have known me?”

  Trevor found Jacy’s eyes over the boy. She remembered that first morning on the plaza.

  “No doubt about it,” Trevor said. “You’re the spittin’ image of your papa.”

  “You think so?”

  The emotion in Trevor’s expression was honest, unguarded, and bordered on awe. Jacy had never seen him display such openness.

  “Sure do. Your papa’d be mighty proud of you.”

  Before their eyes, Todd’s chest expanded. As if to confirm Trevor’s belief in him, he hurried to perform his task. “I’ve brought Wes Hardin’s instructions. He wouldn’t write ’em down, said he trusted me to remember them better than he’d trust me not to lose ’em.”

  Trevor ruffled the boy’s black hair. “Our marching orders, huh? Let’s hear ’em.”

  “Hardin says we have the Chinese underground to thank,” Todd began. While he related the plan, Jacy drew clothing from the basket. Baggy trousers and shirt for her, a serape and sombrero each. She was about to see the Chinese underground Wes Hardin was always referring to, dressed like a Mexican peon. Trepidation tried for a purchase on her anticipation and failed, along with her final attempt to deny she had decided to make the journey.

  She did, however, remain conscious of her duty. “Todd,” she called when he and Trevor finished discussing the trip, “if I go with Trevor, you’ll have to be in charge. You’re not to run around downtown. Be sure to help your—”

  “Aunt Jace,” the boy turned to Trevor, a frown of chagrin. “She doesn’t trust me with anything.”

  “She trusts you, son.”

  Todd rolled his eyes, obviously not convinced.

  “We’re depending on you to hold down the fort while we’re gone,” Trevor added.

  When Todd shrugged again, as though indifferent to the whole affair, Trevor looked nonplussed. Jacy watched him squirm, thinking now maybe he would realize what she had gone through. Finally, he reached for the boy, resting an arm around his slender shoulders.

  “I know this has been hard, Todd, but if you can hold off making judgments a while longer, we’ll have it straightened out.”

  Todd squinted, marginally interested, mostly confused. So was Jacy.

  “Your Aunt Jace and I are going to do our dangedest to get your papa out of prison.”

  Todd shrugged again as if to say why bother. Jacy could hear the retort she would have gotten from the boy. Wes Hardin didn’t do so bad in prison.

  “This may be hard for you to believe right now,” Trevor was saying, “but your papa isn’t guilty of that murder. He didn’t kill anyone. Neither did I.”

  Todd squinted, unconvinced.

  “I said it’d be hard for you to believe. That’s why I’m asking you to hold your horses a bit longer. Juries don’t often make mistakes, son. But this time, those jurors were wrong, and I intend to prove it, if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

  “Then what?” the boy demanded.

  “Then your papa will be released and I won’t be considered an escaped convict. Is that what you mean?”

  “And we’ll go home?”

  Jacy cringed. Home. This family was homeless.

  “If you want to,” Trevor was saying. “Maybe there’s someplace else that’ll be even better than home, what with all the trouble.” He raised eyes to Jacy. “It’s been hard on everyone, Todd. You have to remember that once authorities consider a man a lawbreaker, it’s hard to convince them otherwise. You have to keep your nose clean.”

  “That’s what Constable Selman said,” Todd acknowledged.

  “See? He’s the law. Where does he run first thing when a crime’s been committed? I heard he even tried to put Tía Bella in jail.”

  Todd grinned. “She probably deserved it.”

  Trevor returned the smile. “Maybe, but jail is no place for little old ladies.” He turned solemn again. “Or for boys just growing into men. Don’t mark the rest of your life by looking up to the wrong fellers.”

  Todd cut Jacy a sharp glance. “Aunt Jace told you?”

  “Jace hasn’t told me much.” Trevor winked. “Except to get lost. It hasn’t been so long since I was your age, although I reckon that’s as hard for you to believe as anything right now.”

  Jacy watched Trevor draw a heavy breath and pull the boy hard against him. Emotion gathered in his eyes, bunched in his shoulders.

  “You’re about the only family I’ve got, Todd. I love you almost as much as your papa does, I’d bet. So take care of yourself.”

  When the two drew apart, Todd studied Trevor with a strange new awareness. “You really think you can get Papa released?”

  Trevor nodded.

  “I never believed he killed that whore.”

  “Todd!” Jacy exclaimed.

  “Well, I didn’t. I didn’t believe you killed her, either, Uncle Trevor.”

  Trevor glanced from the boy to Jacy before saying, “Thank you, Todd. That’s a dang fine start.” He squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “Maybe you shouldn’t use that word to describe Miss Bowdrie. She was a special friend of your grandpa’s and it might make him feel bad.”

  One of the nuns brought lunch, tortillas and vegetable soup. At Trevor’s raised brows, Jacy laughed.

  “It’s Friday.”

  Todd left, promising to hold down the fort as Trevor asked, and Jacy turned quietly to the soup and tortillas, stunned by her reaction to Trevor now that she had seen him with Todd.

  She almost believed him innocent. Where he hadn’t been able to convince her, hearing him tell Todd, seeing his tenderness with the boy, almost convinced her. Dear God, she prayed he hadn’t murdered Ana Bowdrie.

  But if not Trevor, who? Certainly not Hunter. She felt weak thinking it.

  “Hunter didn’t kill her,” she blurted out, as though they had been engaged in a heated argument.

  Trevor glanced up sharply. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Jace.”

  “Then who did?” She held his gaze, unable to look away. The depth of her feelings stunned her. Warmth stirred insidiously inside her. Her cheeks must be flaming. She tried to look away but couldn’t.

  “That’s why we’re going to Arizona.” His piercing gaze told her he knew every thought that spiraled through her head. “Isn’t it, Jace?” Trevor turned his attention to the thin soup, unable to concentrate with her eyes on him. Damn! He had lost control of his mind. All he could think about was looking at her, touching her. He felt her long silky hair falling over his face, felt her long slender legs wrapped around him…

  That damnable dream. How the hell was he supposed to save Hunter when all he could think about was stripping Hunter’s sister naked and making love to her here on the cold stone floor?

  A second nun came for the tray. At the sound of the key Trevor jumped to his feet and turned his face to the wall until the door closed again. Then he stood that way a moment longer, trying to gather his chaotic thoughts into a semblance of order. What the hell had he been thinking? This was a stupid plan. Stupid, foolish, and dangerous.

  “I want you to go home,” he said without half thinking it through. With the words spoken, however, he knew they were right.

  “What?”

  “Go home, Jace. To Tía Bella’s.” He inhaled sharply. “They need you.” And I need you out of my sight. Out of my mind. You and that damnable dream and Mari’s irrational, impossible claim.

  “But Mari said—”

  Trevor spun to face her with the velocity of a whirlwind. “What?”

  Jacy’s blue eyes widened at his demand. “Mari said she could handle things. I trust her.”

  Trevor relaxed. Or tried to. “Anyway, I want you to go back.”

  “No one in Arizona will talk to you.” She tossed her head. “You need me.”

  Need her? Damn! “I’ll manage.”

  “We’re talking about my brother’s life.” She stared at him, seeing all, he knew. Somehow they had always been able to se
e the truth in each other. “And yours,” she added.

  He glared at her, as if he could banish her from the room by the force of his despair.

  “I’ve decided to go with you,” she explained, impervious to his discomfort. “If you didn’t want me along, you shouldn’t have done such a good job persuading me I was needed.”

  Want her along? Couldn’t she see that was the problem? No, of course not. Same old Jace, bent on having her own way, come hell or high water. “Suit yourself,” he mumbled.

  Jacy watched Trevor prowl the room like a caged animal, turning on her from time to time to shout an order. Although the foot-thick walls helped retain much of the morning cool, by afternoon the heat became excessive and uncomfortable. She wiped her forehead with her sleeve.

  “I know what’s bothering you,” she said at length.

  This time his eyes fairly blazed. He glared at her, daring her to say it, to give it a name. Well, she had to. Maybe he would relax if he knew she understood.

  “It’s this room,” she said quietly. “It’s entirely too much like a cell. I understand.”

  Hell, she didn’t begin to understand. But he relaxed. “Thanks,” he allowed himself to say. With extraordinary effort, he turned the conversation—and he hoped his mind—to the topic at hand. “So, what did Drummond have to say?”

  “What?”

  “You said you talked to him.”

  “Yes.” Her talk with her father seemed a lifetime away. Before Mari’s startling announcement; before Trevor’s impassioned kiss; before she began to doubt his guilt. Before she began to stop hating him. When things were simple. Black more than white, but simple.

  Thinking back now to her talk with Drummond, she was ashamed to have put aside her father’s pain so readily. “He cried when he told me,” she mused.

  “About what?”

  “What he did to save Hunter’s life.”

  “I thought we already figured that out.”

  “You were wrong.” She shook her head, dismayed still at the length to which Drummond had gone to save his son. She would not hear anyone disparage that. “Papa didn’t offer you in exchange for Hunter’s life. He didn’t have to. The proof against you might have been circumstantial, but the evidence convicted you, Papa didn’t.”

  “I thought you believed in me.”

  Emotions danced on heat waves between them, challenging, thwarting. “Beginning to,” she said. Want to, she cried inside, hoping he couldn’t see it written all over her face. I’ve always wanted to believe in you, she almost said. She didn’t. Holding her emotions in check was hard enough already. And she had learned from Mari’s outrageous claim that once spoken, the truth was not easily denied.

  “Beginning to, huh?” He grinned. “That’s a start.”

  She tried to put on her haughty face, but knew she fell short. She didn’t feel haughty; she felt miserable. “You make it really hard.”

  After an indeterminable time, he broke the spell. “So what currency did Drummond use?”

  “Himself.” At Trevor’s startled expression, she explained. “He promised never to return to Arizona. More than that, he promised that no Kimble would ever cross the territorial borders again.”

  Trevor whistled to the high ceiling. “No Kimble?”

  She nodded.

  “Somebody wanted him out of the territory in the worst way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think about it, Jace. What else could it be?”

  “I doubt anyone wanted him gone as much as he wanted to save Hunter.”

  “Yes, but who stood to gain?”

  She recalled Trevor’s claim that Tom Guest was living at the Diamond K. “Not Tom.”

  Trevor shrugged. “The motive had to be political.”

  “Political?”

  “Why wasn’t that angle explored? Drummond Kimble was perilously close to being elected territorial governor.”

  “I resent the word perilous. It implies he would have damaged Arizona.”

  “Obviously, sweetheart, someone thought so.”

  Even before he was sent to prison, her heart had always tripped at the casual way Trevor had of calling her sweetheart. Nothing had changed. “But why?” She pulled herself together. “Who?”

  “Those are the two things we have to find out.”

  “Can we?” It was one of the most unguarded statements she had made to him.

  His eyes held hers and she knew her question had been double-edged. Could they save Hunter? Could they prove he and Trevor innocent?

  Could they accomplish all this while fighting their untenable fascination with each other? Even now, she was having the hardest time keeping her mind on the subject and off the man. What would it be like on the journey?

  He couldn’t learn the truth. She could never let him suspect the depth of her feelings. Mari was wrong. Trevor didn’t love her. And her love would never hold him. He didn’t believe in love. Hadn’t he said so dozens of times? Regardless how the journey turned out, he would leave. Call it pride, call it self-preservation, she couldn’t let him carry her secret with him. She must disguise her love.

  More than disguise it, she must fight it. What if he turned out to be guilty, after all? What if he really was the villain she had believed him to be? Then he would leave and good riddance.

  But despite herself, Jacy was swept by the unbearable loneliness she knew she would feel when he left. And her mind started playing games.

  Old games. What would it hurt, one night in Trevor’s arms? Why not? What did she have to lose, except her virginity?

  Who cared about her virginity? Who would ever care?

  “Todd was glad to see you,” she offered. An olive branch.

  From across the small room he turned swiftly to accept it. All tension left him. Insolence and cynicism fled. His brown eyes no longer mocked.

  “Lord, how I missed those kids,” he said without pretense.

  Unguarded, Trevor Fallon was human. Much too human.

  “I didn’t know how much I missed them until little Carter raced into the room that day. Even with Mari’s dark eyes and hair, those boys are the spitting image of Hunter.”

  “I know. I live with it every day.”

  His eyes twinkled. “And Sophie’s like you, huh?”

  Her heart pounded out of control. “Too much,” was all she could manage.

  His soft eyes turned earnest. “God, Jace. This has been hard on you. On so many people.” His appeal gained strength. “How could you think I would bring this kind of trouble to the people I love most?”

  The word slipped out. It shocked him almost as much as it did her. Suddenly he was pacing the floor. Entirely too quickly, he began to explain. “I love them, Jace. They took me in, gave me a family when I’d had none for so long I’d forgotten what it was like. Hell, I never did have a family like Hunter and Mari put together. I don’t guess many people do.”

  Jacy’s heart had stopped with the errant word. It took her a moment to realize Trevor was rambling like someone determined to cover a slip of tongue. On that thought, her heart took off on an erratic flight of fancy. Could it be true? Could Mari be right?

  Before he could realize how much he had given away, she stopped him. “They love you, too, Trevor.”

  “Gives a whole new meaning to Miss Fancy Pants,” Trevor joked, attempting to lighten the mood of impending despair that had begun to fall over him with his slip of tongue.

  They left the mission after sundown, having dressed in the darkened room, and made their way to the center of El Paso on foot. Even in the dark, dressing in the small room had unsettled him.

  Too close, Jacy had said of the room. Too close not to hear the rustle of her clothes when she removed dress and whatever she wore underneath. He counted a petticoat or two, he thought, which did nothing to dispel that damned dream.

  Dressed as a couple of peons in serapes and sombreros, they came down the caliche hills keeping to the lengthening shadows. It was t
wilight now, that transitional period when the sky was still too light for all but the occasional star to shine.

  She laughed at his quip, tugging at the sides of her blousey trousers with dainty fingers. “Don’t you wish you had a pair?”

  Jacy was self-conscious, too. He could tell by her stiffness, by the strident tone of her voice.

  “No,” he answered, thinking conversation might take his mind off his slip of tongue. If he didn’t let it happen again. Safe topics. They would stick to safe topics, if there was such a thing. “They resemble prison clothes entirely too much for me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, and he could hear in her voice that she was. Jacy, penitent, was much more dangerous than the caustic and haughty woman he knew.

  He turned away, avoiding eye contact. Avoiding any contact. Hell, the compelling need he felt to touch her sizzled through him. He had hoped getting out of that closed room would help, but it hadn’t.

  Why the hell had Mari made that impossible claim? Three little words that left him edgy and self-conscious around a woman he had always been able to tease, flirt with, enjoy. Untrue though the words were, they stuck in his craw like a boulder, obscuring everything else, even the fact that the problem stemmed from inside himself, from the truth hidden deep within him.

  A truth that was too awful to contemplate. He had seen the consequences of love. It wore a woman out, aged her before her time, killed her. He wouldn’t wish love on his worst enemy. Certainly not on spunky Jacy Kimble.

  Hell, he shouldn’t have brought her along. He’d play hell getting the job done, dodging cactus and rattlers, dodging the law, dodging her. He was supposed to be saving Hunter, and here he was consumed by Hunter’s sister.

  “That’s Old Mexico over there.” She spoke into the night air, startling him. He sidestepped the arm she flung in front of him, pointing out the Río Grande in the distance.

  “I know my directions,” he snapped.

  “You don’t have to snarl,” she shot back.

  “Sorry.” And he was. For a lot of things. Mostly for bringing her along. More, though, for feeling the hopeless, helpless, miserable things he felt for her.

  “I hope no one recognizes you,” she said after a while.