by Dana Pratola
What a strange question. “Uh….” I looked from one rage reddened face to the other.
“Uh…” Sandy mocked. “Go ahead, deny it. I know you, missy, like I know your mother, and that piece of trash uncle of yours.”
I shook my head, having no better idea of what they were accusing me of, only knowing I was in trouble.
Ben took an ominous step toward me, then just hovered. “Is it true? I want to hear you say it.”
Fear clogged my words in my throat. I swallowed it. “Say what?”
“That you set Kash up. Tried to kill him,” Sandy snapped.
I felt my eyes widen in utter shock. “What?!”
“Sandy, that’s crazy,” Tory interjected. “Brew did it, we all know it.”
“Well she was in on it with him then.”
“Sandy, I got this,” Ben said, then turned back to me, his expression still scathing, his tone only slightly less so. “Is Brewster McCloud your uncle?”
“Yes.” I hated to admit it. He was a low-life and none of the family even recognized his existence any more. “But—”
“I told you!” Sandy said, spiking a victorious finger toward the ground.
“But what…? I don’t—”
“Were you and Brew working together to take over this ranch?” Ben asked.
I think my brain was stuck on repeat, because all I thought was, what are they asking me? What? Tory and Cull came to stand on either side of me, like a posse surrounding a cattle rustler.
“Look at her, she doesn’t know what to say, because she’s caught. Why else would she be here?” Sandy asked, then took a step toward me. “You thought we wouldn’t find out? You hanging around to finish the job?”
“I don’t know what that means!” I said.
“You’re a liar like that good for nothing uncle of yours,” Sandy spat.
“I’m not … I don’t—”
“Just tell me,” Ben said.
“Let’s take it easy a minute,” Cull said. Tory murmured her agreement.
“Tell me,” Ben repeated, ignoring them.
“Tell you what?” I stepped back, but he came forward until I could only back away, bumping into the couch and falling back onto it. “What’s going on? Stop it!”
“You planned this with your uncle to get back at Kash for firing him,” Ben accused.
“No!”
“Your uncle got off easy. Stealing, cheating, disloyal…. Kash only fired him when he should’ve taken it out of his hide, and this is what he gets.” Ben’s voice was raised now, reverberating inside my chest. “That mangy dog tried to kill my best friend and if you’re helping him, you’re just as responsible as he is.”
“Ben!” Tory shouted. “There’s no reason to talk to her like that. You don’t know any such thing for sure.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with any of this … whatever went on!” I pleaded, but neither he nor Sandy would listen.
For the next minute, the others tried to calm things down as Ben and Sandy took turns accusing me, she, berating me every chance she could, Ben’s voice lowered now in cold contempt. I don’t remember all the words. As fearful as I was, I was that much more disbelieving not only that they would accuse me without any kind of proof, but that Kash would befriend people who could talk to me this way. Especially Ben.
“This has gone far enough,” Tory said, at last. “The truth will come out. We don’t know anything yet.”
My face was stained with tears, and finally, Ben took a step back and inhaled through his nose.
“We know she’s his niece,” Sandy said. “And I know his ways, yes, I do.”
“And that’s all we know,” Cull added. “Doesn’t mean anything.”
“Kash can’t know. It would’ve come up if he knew. For him not to know means she didn’t tell him,” Sandy said, aiming a threatening finger at me as she addressed Cull.
“I don’t know what your plan is,” Ben told me, “but it’s over. You’re not going to manipulate him anymore.”
“How come you never told Kash you’re related?” Sandy demanded. “That there means you were hiding it.”
“It never came up!” I said. “Why would it?”
“Never came up? You expect us to believe—”
“Sandy, please,” Tory interrupted. “Maybe you want to wait outside.”
“I do not.” She folded her arms, stiffening her lips into unyielding lines.
“How did it not come up?” Ben asked me. “You didn’t ask what happened to him? He didn’t tell you Brew locked him in a trailer with a horse known to be a son-of-a-bitch, to bash his head in?”
“No! Not by name, he never told me my unc—Brewster did that. He never mentioned a name, Ben.” He looked completely unmoved. “Ben, you have to believe me. I would never….” I shook my head. “I could never do that, to anybody. Why would I? I didn’t even know him.”
“But your uncle did.”
“I told him earlier,” I remembered, as if that would help. “We were talking about this.” I took the book from the couch and shook it at him. “We were reading your grandfather’s book and I said my uncle—another uncle—had a ranch in Townsend, and Uncle Brew came up. I told him! I didn’t know it meant anything. He didn’t say anything.”
Now that I thought of it, why didn’t he say anything? It was probably an irrelevant point, but it stuck in my brain like a burr. Why?
“That’s what you say,” Sandy chimed in.
It was no use. No matter what I said, she and Ben were going to tear it to pieces, twist it around to make me out a co-conspirator in the attempted murder of the man I loved.
And what a time for that to hit me square in the chest. Love.
“Brew got far less than he deserved. Fired. That’s it. Fired.” Ben threw his hands up in disgust, took a few steps away, then whirled to face me again. “That slimy worm is going to find a bullet through his black heart if he comes back here. You better tell him so.”
“I don’t—”
“Kash is closer than a brother to me,” he said, aiming an index finger in no particular direction. “If anything else happens to him—anything—I’m going to prison for murder, and I don’t say it lightly. I love that man.”
“So do I!”
For a second those words echoed in my ear, only to be smothered by Sandy’s scoffing rebuke.
“What’s a McCloud know about love?” she mocked. “Your mother, God rest her, never fit in that family, and I don’t put any of this on her. I guess it’s no wonder you went to the other side, that dark side, the whole lot of them carousing, raising hell, hurting people.”
“Don’t I remember you saying you took up with him some years back?” Tory asked. “Then he dumped you?”
Sandy nodded exuberantly, taking it as further evidence against my uncle, but I heard the words as a subtle rebuke of her motives for attacking me, and a hint of Tory’s compassion for me. Sandy wrinkled her nose but kept her mouth shut.
“You all need to calm down, seriously,” Tory said. Cull agreed. “Josiah will sort all this out when he comes.”
“You’re going to tell him as soon as he does,” Ben ordered me. “You’re not going to keep him guessing and trying to make him think there’s something between you when it’s all lies.”
I had nothing left to say, their minds were made up. I certainly wasn’t going to hang around to watch them fill Josiah’s head with poison and turn his heart against me, so he would end up hating me. Of course he would believe them. Why wouldn’t he? Ben was his best friend, and he hadn’t known me two weeks.
Ben felt his pockets, “Where’s my phone?”
“I think it’s in your cup holder,” Sandy said.
“I’ll be back,” he said and stormed outside.
“Sandy, why don’t you go with him?” Tory suggested. “Cool off a bit.”
Tears blazed their way down my cheeks as Sandy reluctantly walked out.
“Hold on, I’ll bring you a glass of water,” Cull told me
.
He and Tory walked toward the kitchen, murmuring. No way was I sticking around for part two of the inquisition. I waited just until they were both out of sight then ran outside, making a break for it. Ben and Sandy barely had time to turn around before I flung myself onto my bike and pedaled my butt off.
CHAPTER 26
I couldn’t go to the Wagoner house; it was the first place Josiah would look. Whatever his plan, it had been cut short and I had no doubt he would come find me, if only to make me feel worse. I didn’t want to believe that of him, but then, as Tory had said, I didn’t really know him, did I? Was he as unpredictable as Ben, who’d been pleasant enough to me, until he wasn’t?
After hearing about my relation to Brew, Josiah had had no reaction. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, he’d seemed a little … stunned, but not a big enough response to warrant the kind of backlash I had received from Sandy and Ben.
Why? Had he already known and was just taken aback to hear me admit it? Could that be what this whole thing was about to begin with? Tracking me to the house, making me feel secure with him, making me fall in l—
I broke on a choking sob that went on just enough to have my eyes puffed up and my throat feeling dry, like I had gravel caught in it. My sinuses were swollen closed and I stopped pedaling in the middle of the road to feel in my jacket pockets for tissues to blow my nose, realizing only then that I didn’t even have my jacket. I had nothing. No wonder I felt cold as ice inside and out.
Riding a bike while crying wasn’t the best idea. Watching the sky flash and shimmer didn’t help either. I knew the storms causing the lightning could be a hundred miles away, but that knowledge did little to keep my pulse from jumping with each flicker.
Eliza’s place was just ahead, so I kept my head down, pumping my legs as fast as they would go until I turned onto her dimly lit street. I’d coasted half way down the block before looking up to see a dark form pacing in front of her building. Why would someone be out there at this hour? I hoped it wasn’t Stu. Something about that man gave me the willies, and he normally gave me a hard time about bringing my bike inside.
I slowed, cruising to the opposite side of the street, surprised and relieved when a car pulled up, and the person got in the back and drove off. My heart wouldn’t calm down, though, until I was past the spying eyes of Stu, and safely inside Eliza’s apartment. I didn’t see him, so I rested the bike against the stairs and ran up to knock on her door. Quietly.
She came right away and I heard her behind the door, looking through the peephole. Locks unlatched and she pulled the door open. “Brenna, what are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the ranch?”
“Oh good, you’re up,” I whispered. Stu didn’t miss much. “I … there was—”
“Are you okay? What happened? Come in.”
“I’ll tell you, but I have to do something with my bike. Can you help me sneak it in?”
“You rode here? It’s the middle of the night!”
“Shh, Stu.”
“Stu’s not here,” Eliza said, already slipping her shoes on. “Believe it or not, he volunteers on a cleanup crew that scrubs up after murders. Believe that? He volunteers! How creepy do you have to be to do that job for free?”
I didn’t ask how she knew that, or tell her that I might know exactly where he was working tonight. “What about your mom?”
“She’s working until six. And why aren’t you wearing a jacket?” She touched my arm. “You’re like a snow cone.”
We brought the bike up and stowed it in the hallway, tucking it into the darkness of the attic staircase outside her apartment door.
“I’ll make us tea,” Eliza said, pointing to the living room, forbidding me to follow her into the kitchenette. “Tell me everything. What’s going on? Did he try something with you? Did he hurt you? What did he do?”
I kicked off my shoes and sat on the couch, pulling one of her many throws over me. “We were getting along great, I read to him—oh!” I pushed back off the couch, joining her in the kitchenette doorway, throw and all. “He can see!”
“What? That’s great,” she said. But I guess my expression didn’t confirm it. “It’s not?”
“He didn’t tell me. I happened to find out.”
Her shocked expression quickly turned dark. “That…. So, he made the whole thing up for sympathy?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “To be with you?”
I was already shaking my head. Though I didn’t know his reason for sure, something in me needed to defend him. “No, it wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it?”
“I don’t know.” I went back to the couch and dropped onto it. “I’ve been trying to figure that out. Maybe to get even with me.”
“For what? Oh, wait. Let me finish this and bring it in.”
When the tea was finished, she joined me on the couch, handed me a steaming mug, and spread a green throw over our laps.
“You’re like ice,” she said, pulling her stockinged feet up and rubbing them against mine. “Really. I feel your toes through your socks.”
“I didn’t feel it when I was riding.” Now that I thawed, I realized how far the temperature had dropped. Autumn in the Wagoner house would be impossible with no heat. It surely wouldn’t stay on with no renter, but I only had to stay there long enough to replace the money I had given Josiah for rent.
“So, get even for what?” Eliza asked. “What’d you do?”
I hung my head. To my great relief, I didn’t feel tears encroaching, just a rather hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. “He found out I’m Brewster’s niece.”
She opened her free hand, raising her brows. “And that’s a problem, why? I mean I know Brew’s a dirtbag….”
I picked up the remote and clicked the TV on. “Brew’s the one who caused him to lose his vision. Locked him in a horse trailer knowing he’d be hurt, if not killed.”
She took a quick sip of her tea and set the mug on the coffee table. “What? Who does that?”
I nodded, trying to focus on the actors onscreen so I didn’t look upset. Thinking of the horror Josiah had experienced was more than I could take now.
She reached across the seat and grabbed my forearm. “Bren, he doesn’t think you had anything to do with it…?”
“Yes, I think he does.” I set my mug beside hers. “He must. His friends sure do.”
“How? Why?”
There was that question again. Why would I do such a thing? “Sandy thought to finish the job Brew started.”
“That’s crazy!” she said, fuming.
“Of course it is.” I told her briefly about Ben and Sandy’s verbal attack on me, leaving out the really bad, scary parts so as not to upset her further.
“So, how can you be so sure Josiah wasn’t pretending to be blind to get you to trust him?” she asked, when I finished. “Say he knew all along who you were—”
“He didn’t,” I interrupted.
“Say he did,” she counter-interrupted. “And he cons you to feel sorry for him so—”
“No.”
“That’s what it sounds—”
“He was blind,” I insisted. “Part of the time, anyway.”
Eliza paused, watching me, tilting her head one way, then another. “Well, you lived with him, I guess you’d know whether he could see.” She held a hand up in a stop motion. “Oh, wait. You didn’t!” When I opened my mouth to speak, she shook her head, quickly. “How do I know you didn’t? Because you found out tonight that he can see.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, holding them at the sides for a second before letting my arms drop. “No, at first he definitely couldn’t see.” Eliza rolled her eyes but I kept going. “Except yesterday and the day before, there were times I thought he was looking at me, you know?”
“Because he was.”
“Well, yeah, I know that now. Before … no. They said he got his sight back on Tuesday.”
Eliza waved the comment away. “Okay, I’ll gi
ve you that. He was blind. But if he knew who your uncle was, why wouldn’t he say anything? That tells me he’s been playing you from the beginning. Somehow.”
That didn’t make sense to me. “I don’t think he knew about my uncle before I told him. I don’t. Even if he did know, what would he think he’d accomplish? I don’t even see my uncle. If he learned we were related, wouldn’t he also know that we don’t speak at all? And then, how would he know I stayed at the Wagoner house?”
“True, that makes sense. Still, what are the odds he’d just happen on the niece of his attempted murderer?” Eliza asked.
I had to admit, that one was a little odd and made me question. “I know it’s weird, but that’s what happened. I just don’t get why he didn’t freak out when I told him.”
She sighed. “Maybe you took him by surprise.”
“Maybe. What do you mean?”
“What was he doing when you told him? How did it come up?”
“I was reading to him and a part reminded me of Uncle Brewster. It was about—never mind.” I shuddered to think about it even now. “Then I mentioned Uncle Dean and kept on reading. Josiah was playing with my hair.” My lips curved all on their own at the memory, right before a fresh ball of emotion backed up from my chest into my throat. I aimed the remote at the TV, changing channels, as if somehow, I could change my feelings as well.
“Playing with your hair?” Eliza asked.
“Yeah. Sitting on the couch, relaxing.” She stared at me, as if she were trying to figure out a riddle. “What?”
“Bren, are you in love with him?”
I pulled my lips in to wet them before answering. “Yup.” I let out a long sigh. “Yup.”
She took the remote from me and muted the TV. “Wait, what? When did this happen? What were you waiting for to tell me?”
“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. To the first question, anyway. I’d felt my heart slipping downhill, but I couldn’t say when it had finally come to rest at Josiah’s feet. It had, and now even if I picked it up and brushed it off, it would still always bear the marks.
As far as why I didn’t tell her, it was because I didn’t want her being suspicious, over-analyzing it. Ruining it for me. The way we both were right now. Although now we had reason.