by Pam Crooks
“Do you know something you’re not telling me?”
He stilled at her query.
For one wild moment, he thought she spoke of what he’d done. His part in Danny’s death.
But in the next, he realized she didn’t mean that at all.
Relief swept through him. He chose his words carefully. “I haven’t seen anything, Callie Mae. If I did, I’d tell you.”
Even after he’d said the words, he wondered if they were true. Would he only want to protect her? Figure what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her?
“Let’s load up, Maggie,” Boomer said. “The night’s not getting any younger.”
“I’ll give you a hand with that hamper,” Stinky Dale said, right behind him.
“You agreed to leaving like this, Boomer?” Maggie demanded, not moving. “Now?”
“I did. We got to take care of Blue.”
“We need to take care of TJ more,” she insisted.
It wasn’t often she resisted a decision TJ and Boomer made together. That she did so now showed a glimmer of the spirit she hadn’t shown in much too long.
But TJ had no intention of letting her stay.
“I’ll feel better when you’re all safe at home, Maggie,” he said.
“What about your safety? Or hers?” She gestured stiffly toward Callie Mae.
“I’ll take care of us,” he said simply.
“C’mon, Maggie.” Boomer’s gentle-but-firm tug pulled her away from the hamper, so he and Stinky Dale could carry it toward the horses.
Except Callie Mae moved in front of it so they couldn’t.
Feet spread, chin high, jaw set, she looked just like her mother standing there. Proud and defiant. In control. Capable of carrying on her legacy and defending it.
The sight of her stirred TJ’s admiration.
And his unease.
“No one is going anywhere,” she said coolly. “Until I find out exactly what happened the night Danny died.”
No one spoke.
Callie Mae kept her expression blank, but her heart pounded in her ears.
What if she was wrong? What if her instincts had overreacted to Maggie’s mental sensitivities?
Time pounded away, right along with her heart. After Maggie rode off with Boomer into the night, the opportunity would be lost for Callie Mae to demand the answers she needed from the woman. Who knew when Callie Mae would get another chance?
Again and again, TJ insisted there was more to learn, more than she knew. That his trial, the evidence, had failed to reveal the truth.
She had to risk looking stupid and being wrong. Maybe she’d misjudged Maggie’s furtive looks all through supper. Her nervousness. But there had to be a reason for the way she acted and, for tonight at least, no one could blame it on whiskey.
“I told you, Callie Mae.” TJ slid her a smooth smile. “We’ll get to that when we talk to Kullen.”
“His side of it, yes. If he talks.” Her own mouth crooked. “And we both know that’ll be a big if, don’t we?”
The admission startled her, as if her subconscious had pushed the thought out of her mind and onto her tongue. Kullen’s actions at Preston Farm had revealed his malice toward TJ, the depth of which he’d clearly gone to great lengths to conceal from Callie Mae.
“Oh, he’ll talk, all right,” TJ said softly. With some malice of his own.
Unfortunately, Callie Mae wasn’t so sure Kullen would. Not anymore. Her glance swung to Maggie. The woman quickly averted her eyes, and her throat moved, as if she’d swallowed down a response.
“Maggie?” Callie Mae said quietly. “Is there something you’d like to say?”
“Reckon talking can come later, Miss Lockett,” Boomer said, his voice loud in the woman’s silence. “She’s had a long day. We all have. C’mon, Maggie. We’ve got to get going.” He stepped forward and took her elbow with his good hand.
“Let her speak for herself, Boomer,” Callie Mae ordered.
TJ grasped Maggie’s other elbow. “Boomer’s right, Callie Mae. It’s getting late, and they’ve got a long ride ahead of them. Grab that hamper, will you, Stinky Dale?”
Not waiting to see if he did, TJ and Boomer turned, taking Maggie, keeping her sandwiched between them. Their haste couldn’t have been more obvious than if they’d thrown her over their shoulders and ran toward the horses.
Instant suspicion curled through Callie Mae, but before she could demand they stop, Maggie suddenly yanked free of their grips.
“No!” she cried out. She pressed her fingertips to her temples and squeezed her eyes closed. Her thin body trembled.
The poor woman seemed on the brink of something. Callie Mae held her breath.
Choking back a sob, Maggie opened her eyes and appealed to TJ with a tormented expression.
“I can’t keep on like this,” she said hoarsely.
“Like what?” Callie Mae asked, taking a step toward her. “What has made you so unhappy?”
“Don’t say anything, Maggie.” TJ reached for her.
She evaded him. “I have to tell her.”
“You’re tired, honey.” Boomer reached for her, too, with the same result. “You’re—”
“Don’t make excuses for me, Boomer.” She drew in a quavery breath. “It doesn’t help. It never helps.”
“I’m speakin’ the truth this time, so—”
Callie Mae held up a hand. “Enough, Boomer. Let her talk.”
The horseman exchanged a troubled glance with TJ, who tightened his lips and clenched his fists and stood very, very still.
“Maggie.” TJ cleared his throat. “Maggie, don’t do it.”
“I have to.” She straightened her back, pivoted on her boot heel and faced Callie Mae square. “I’ve got something to say to you, Miss Lockett. And when I do, I want you to know it’s the truth. Leastways, I’ll go to my grave believin’ it is.”
“Certainly, Maggie.” Callie Mae marveled at how calm she sounded when her heart started pounding all over again. “I’m listening.”
“It’s about your brother. Little Danny. He—I—” Her slim throat worked, and a shimmer of tears shone in her dark eyes, saddle-leather brown and so much like her son’s. “I killed him, Miss Lockett. It was me. Not TJ.”
Callie Mae’s world tilted. Her fingers flew to her lips, stifling her shocked gasp. Whatever she might have thought Maggie would say, it hadn’t been this.
Never this.
“What?” she choked.
TJ breathed a vehement curse and raked his hand through his hair. Stinky Dale studied the toes of his boots. And Boomer just looked miserable.
“I was there that night, in the new horse barn, when Danny came looking for TJ,” she said.
“You were?” Callie Mae rasped. “Why?”
It would’ve been late, she recalled. The night of her welcome-home party. Danny had been at the house, among the guests, until nearly midnight. Callie Mae had seen him herself and talked to him, as had so many others.
But then he’d disappeared.
And no one had noticed.
Until it was too late.
“I needed whiskey.” Maggie whispered the words, but she seemed to gain strength from them. “I had more,” she added, her voice stronger. “Another bottle in TJ’s office.”
Callie Mae nodded slowly. “Go on.”
“Danny walked in, looking for TJ, calling for him. Then he came. Out of the dark. He said he’d take Danny to see TJ.”
“Who, Maggie?” Callie Mae demanded. “Who was waiting in the dark?”
For the barest of moments, the other woman’s chin quivered. “I don’t know. I never saw him before. He wore his hat over his eyes, real low, but his voice, the way he acted—I didn’t recognize him.”
“Were you drunk?” Callie Mae couldn’t help the accusation threading through her voice. “Maybe you knew him but don’t remember it. Maybe he was C Bar C. Someone in the outfit. Or maybe this was all a figment of your imagination because the
whiskey was messing with your mind.”
“I’d been drinking, yes. But I could smell trouble when it was happening.”
Callie Mae tried not to feel skeptical. Maggie’s reputation for imbibing spirits had been well-known through the years. “What happened next?”
“He tried to steal Danny.”
“Steal him? You mean, kidnap him?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, God.”
“But Danny, he acted fast and threw the lantern at him, then I hit the stranger on the head with my whiskey bottle and told Danny to run. He did, and by then the fire started. The stranger threw me off and went chasing after him. I ran for TJ’s shotgun and when I found them, the stranger almost had Danny, but he saw me and jumped away, just in time, after I’d already pulled the trigger. Oh, Miss Lockett.” Maggie covered her face with her hands. “It was an accident. I swear it. I was trying to save Danny, but I killed him instead.”
Callie Mae stood frozen, her body heaving from the horror.
“It was how I found her,” TJ added roughly. “Kneeling over Danny. By then, it was too late.”
Callie Mae’s throat burned. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move from the pain.
Maggie lowered her hands. “My son took the blame for what I’d done, Miss Lockett,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “He was protecting me, that’s all. Saving me from myself.” She drew herself up to hold Callie Mae’s gaze. “And all this time you’ve been hating him, you should’ve been hating me instead.”
Chapter Thirteen
Emmett Ralston crept as close to their camp as he dared. Snatches of conversation drifted toward him, but one word in particular kept his senses on high-alert.
Danny.
He wedged himself between an outcropping of rock and some brush. Any closer, they’d see him for sure. But he had to hear, had to know what they were saying about the boy.
His stare latched on to Maggie Grier. She was doing most of the talking, and that was strange right there. In the short time he’d known her from back at Preston Farm, the woman never had much to say. When she did, she spoke real soft-like and didn’t pay him much mind.
Which was fine with him, since he made it a point to keep to himself as much as possible. From the first day TJ hired him.
He had to.
But tonight, she was talking as if she had diarrhea of the jawbone. Everyone stood around her, hanging on every word. And they looked as serious as ducks in the desert.
The Lockett woman, especially.
Emmett listened hard to learn more about what they found so fascinating about Danny-boy… and heard details about the night he died that no one else would know—the sequence of events that had happened so fast, so unexpected, they’d been a blur in his mind.
Until now.
The blur lifted like a cloud. Shock slammed into his belly like a fist.
Fighting to breathe, he gaped at the long gray braid, the slight build inside a man’s denims, the baggy shirt. The shrieking drunk who’d been hiding inside the C Bar C’s horse barn that night… was Maggie Grier?
Beads of sweat dotted Emmett’s brow. He’d thought she was a man. God knew she fought like one. Things had happened fast, so damned fast—he hadn’t taken the time to get a good look at her, not when his focus had been on Danny, to catch him before he got away…
A mistake, a mistake, a mistake.
The comprehension spun inside him and left him nauseous from his own stupidity. If only he’d known, he would’ve killed her long before now to shut her up for good and keep TJ and Callie Mae Lockett from finding out.
Her stepfather, Penn McClure, too.
Now, everything made sense.
Emmett swiped a hand across his sweaty brow. And now, everything had changed.
TJ took the blame for what his crazy mother had done, but he’d want to get even for it. Revenge for Danny McClure. Emmett didn’t know how much TJ knew. Wouldn’t be long, he’d know too much, what with that agent he had working for him. And with Maggie Grier spilling her guts to everyone out there, hell, someone was bound to figure things out.
Emmett eased back from the brush. He had to go back to Kullen, let him know they had to get the hell out of Texas.
Fast.
If they didn’t, they’d be dead.
Callie Mae sat at the stream’s edge with her knees drawn up to her chest. A breeze blew over the water, chilling the late-night air, raising gooseflesh on her skin.
She hardly noticed. She stared out over the shimmering surface, cast to undulating shades of silver by the moon. Maggie’s confession rippled through her mind, again and again, like the water incessantly lapping against the bank.
The woman’s pain, her piercing heartache, had been real. Not once did Callie Mae think to question the truth of all she claimed. It made too much sense. Once the shock dissipated, the puzzle of inconsistencies of what Callie Mae believed—what they all believed—about TJ’s behavior fell into place and formed a clearer picture of the man he was.
Had always been.
An honorable one. A son strong enough to shoulder his mother’s weaknesses. He loved her too much to allow her to suffer the ravages of a scandal, the scourges of interrogation by the law, and being labeled a child-murderer by an unforgiving public.
He’d spared her all of it and showed no regret. Throughout his trial, he’d held his head high because he knew he’d done nothing wrong—except lie to save his mother. At the time of his trial, Callie Mae despised him for his arrogance. That appalling lack of remorse. She’d interpreted his pride as defiance of the law and being uncaring of the despicable act he’d done.
What she believed he’d done.
Callie Mae lowered her forehead to her knees and closed her eyes. She’d been quick to fall for his lie, though she should’ve recognized it as one. She’d known TJ almost her whole life. He’d grown into a man on the C Bar C, had shown his dedication to the ranch, her parents, her, too many times to count.
But the grief over losing her little brother had clouded reason and fueled the hate planted and nurtured by Kullen through flimsy evidence—
Kullen. She moaned aloud. What was his place in this? Why had he been so determined to dismiss TJ’s claim that the shooting had been accidental? Why did he want TJ convicted? Had he latched too quickly onto TJ’s confession and used it to glorify himself with an easy victory in the courtroom? A way to cinch himself a place in the C Bar C? Her legacy?
No, no. She moaned again in confusion. What was she thinking? Kullen would do nothing of the sort. As a shrewd lawyer, he had the means and ability to close the ugly chapter on Danny’s death by enacting swift punishment on the man who claimed responsibility. Doing so had helped them heal, pick up the pieces and go on with their lives.
Except he was wrong.
They all were.
And now, what were they to do about it?
Behind her, a boot sole scuffed the grass and yanked her thoughts back to reality. She sat straighter with a jerk.
Wreathed in moonlight, TJ loomed over her. Dark and silent. Watching her.
What was he thinking? Did he hate her for believing the worst about him? Was he hurt beyond measure? Resentful that she didn’t trust him?
“They’re gone,” he said finally.
Maggie, Boomer and Stinky Dale. Callie Mae hadn’t told them goodbye. She should have. In light of the trouble they’d gone through, riding out here, concerned for their welfare and eager to help with Blue, well, it would’ve been the least she could do.
Now, the chance to speak with Maggie was gone. Delayed, at the very least, when an insufferable amount of time had already passed. After the woman’s confession tonight, there’d been too much to grasp. Too much to understand. With her head spinning, Callie Mae had rushed to the stream to be alone and sort it out.
No one had followed. They’d given her the privacy she needed and slipped away, headed for home, before she could notice, leaving her alone wit
h the man convicted for killing her brother and who’d paid a higher price than he deserved.
“Now what, TJ?” she asked quietly.
“We get some sleep.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
With the moonlight behind him, she couldn’t see his expression. But she could feel the intensity of his gaze upon her. As if what he saw troubled him.
A moment passed. Then, he extended his hand.
For another moment, her glance lingered over its darkened shape, the long lean fingers, the broad palm. A hand that could gentle a newborn foal or break a bucking bronc. She’d learned how it could boldly caress a woman, too. Make her feel desired. Aroused. A hand that had always worked hard but… could never be capable of knowingly shooting a child.
Assured she wouldn’t question that part of him again, she lifted her own, and he closed his fingers around hers to pull her gently, easily, to her feet.
She stood before him, the two of them in the moonlight. His fingers didn’t let go, and neither did hers. Somehow, of their own accord, their fingers twined together. Their arms hung loose at their sides.
“I meant, where do we go from here?” she said.
“Nothing’s changed, Callie Mae,” he said. “We still need to find the truth from Kullen. First thing tomorrow, we’ll head to Amarillo.”
Hearing her intended’s name tugged a frown between her brows and an unexpected ripple of dread. At seeing Kullen. At what he might say.
“When that’s done,” she persisted. “What then, TJ?”
Will you forgive me and simply go on with your life while I go on with mine? Or will you always despise me and those of us who hated you for what you’d said you’d done?
“Then I’m going to do whatever I can to keep you from marrying Kullen,” he said.
His response startled her, and yet it shouldn’t have. TJ had always made clear his contempt for the man. Callie Mae searched his shadowed expression.
“Why should it matter to you who I marry, TJ?” she asked, without accusation. Only curiosity.
“Everything about you has always mattered to me, Callie Mae,” he rumbled. “Even when you were a kid.”